Page 1816 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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record. I look forward to Mr Stanhope being the honourable man that he is—the honourable gentleman—and, when I am finished, standing up and apologising for getting it wrong. If he doubts it, on page 126 of the 2000-01 budget is table 5.4.1—the traffic congestion and road safety improvement program—which in 2000-01 sought $2.7 million worth of capital works money appropriated. On page 134, for 2001-02 there is $28,999,000 appropriated for the works. Money was appropriated across two budgets, contrary to what the Chief Minister said, to build this project.
Mr Stanhope asserts that you could never have done it for the money. He accepted in the run-up to the 2001 election that you could because his spokesman, Mr Corbell, was out there telling people, “We’ll build this road on the western alignment on time, on budget.” That was the grab. Mr Corbell actually got caught. You would not know this, Madam Assistant Speaker, but he would go to some meetings and say, “Yes, we’re in favour of the road,” and then he would go to other meetings and say, “We’re not in favour of the road on that alignment.” Mr Corbell got caught out for telling people what he thought they wanted to hear.
But the one consistent thing Mr Corbell did in that period was to say, “We will build this road on time and on budget.” On time and on budget was $53 million worth of expenditure, all of which was to be completed by the 2004-05 year. It was to open on 1 July 2005. As Hanson has just pointed out, they had not even signed a contract on 1 July 2005. Their clear commitment in the lead-up to the 2001 budget was on time, on budget. They accepted the funding. It is very good to come back 10 years later and say, “You could never have done it for that money,” but you did accept it at the time.
The money had three components: one for Gungahlin Drive, north of Belconnen Way, $32 million; the Caswell Drive duplication, $6 million; and the Glenloch Interchange, $15 million—a total of $53 million. As the Chief Minister so rightly pointed out this morning, of course, the further you go back in time the cheaper the building rate per kilometre. We heard this morning that the GDE is now costing something like $20 million a kilometre. The Majura Parkway is now $26 million a kilometre for the dual carriageway. That is what I think I heard the Chief Minister say this morning.
Back in 2005, of course, it would have been cheaper. But if you had started it in 2001, when you should have done, as per your promise at that election, then it would have been much cheaper and you could have achieved the $53 million. If you did not take the ludicrous approach of splitting it into such an awkward delivery pattern of contracts then, of course, it would have been much cheaper—building one bridge at a time and then coming back. I love the bit in the amendment by Mr Stanhope where we have now got GDE stage 1 and stage 2. It is almost like it was planned to be a mess. They actually went out of their way to have a two-stage mess. I see they are not learning. We see there is $144 million in the capital works budget this year for what they are saying is their half of the Majura Parkway because we expect Defence to fund it. Will we repeat the mistake again and build half a road? Will we build half a government office block? Who knows?
It is an excellent motion from Mr Coe. It is excellent because Gungahlin Drive connecting with the Tuggeranong Parkway is a key transport link within the ACT road network. It is critical for the public and for business that these roads are able to
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