Page 3787 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 24 August 2011
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got one project where they have spent over $5 million on consultants’ reports and now he is telling us that the other project, which they have barely even started to think about, is their priority. It is ridiculous. It is not true.
I refer the Assembly to an answer to a question on notice from the Chief Minister in June of this year. I asked the Chief Minister what were the 500 public service jobs that will be moving to Gungahlin. I asked her to provide a list of agencies. I asked what were the criteria used in determining the number of public service jobs for the move. The answer was that the proposed government office in Gungahlin is subject to a feasibility study with budget funding of $150,000. So they do not know. It is not a priority, clearly. It absolutely should be a priority over the dud project that is the government office project in the city, but it is not.
This amendment from Mr Barr is simply not true. To try and claim that this is their priority—the one where they do not know which agencies, they do not know which models, they do not know how much it will cost, they do not know where it will be except it might be in Gungahlin—over the office project which they have had $5 million in consultants’ reports done is farcical. You are asking the Assembly to endorse something which clearly, on all the facts presented to us, is not true.
It is very difficult to know where Mr Barr is on this project now. He has variously said that it is not a priority but the government clearly is committed to the government office project. They are committed to it. Why would it not be a priority for Mr Barr if he believes the information that has been put out by his colleagues? If it actually did save you $20 million a year on their rubbery figures, if he believed those rubbery figures, he would be jumping at the chance, wouldn’t he? But, of course, he does not believe them because they are not believable. They are absolute rubbish. I think that this has been one of the worst exercises by a government in pretending that things exist that do not—in pretending there are savings when they cannot quantify them or justify them.
But there is an opportunity. The opportunity is to vote for the motion. If Mr Barr is not committed to the project he can vote for our motion, walk away from it and save taxpayers a lot of time and money. Or he can continue down this path of pursuing a $430 million office we do not need.
By voting against my motion, that is what the government are doing. They are heading down this course. I say to them again what I say in this motion: abandon this project; focus on real priorities; do not waste taxpayers’ money on a building we neither need nor can we afford. We will not be supporting the amendment because the amendment is simply not true.
Question put:
That Mr Barr’s amendment to Ms Hunter’s proposed amendment be agreed to.
The Assembly voted—
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