EY gets the nod to make Capital Metro's business case

Zed moved electorates and bought with him a personal vote. The liberals themselves didn’t do well in Tuggeranong, it was Zed pulling most of the quotas needed for the 3 seats. Still he went last on my ballot, and his assault on the senate seat shows, he is only interested in himself.

There have been Liberal local governments in Canberra when the cross bench wasn’t the greens. The democrats and independants in general made a far better cross bench, because they usually sit in the middle of both parties where as in the current gov the greens are further left than Labor.

By the next ACT election there will probably be a swing away from Liberal, because they will do diddly squat for the ACT federally. And also the states and territories tend to swap away from the current federal government. People like to hedge bets.

Back onto the topic though, I can’t see how a slow tram like service is beneficial. We already have one of those and they are called buses. We need a rapid intercity transport service, whether that be dedicated rapid busways or rapid light rail. Link Tuggeranong, Woden, Belconnen and Gungahlin to the city with a stop in places like Manuka,Kingston, Dickson, ie halfway along the line. Put park and ride carparks up next to the stations and people will use it. Then sell off all the car parks in the city as well to offset costs.

If I was in Gungahlin, why would I ride a tram that takes almost as long as the bus?
Surely people don’t catch buses because they take too long. I can work around a bad schedule, I can’t work around trip times around an hour from Tuggeranong to the city.

housebound said :

Hmmm. Belconnen is an uber-safe Labor seat (federally) and can be relied on to give three non-liberal seats (locally) that help to virtually guarantee Labor’s ongoing rule in the ACT.

Please excuse my ignorance of all things south, but what is it that Tuggers doesn’t get that Belco does? It seems to me the two areas are on a par, with Belco doing slightly better during the reign of Stanhope (other than school closures, where his protection services were more focused).

An ongoing Labor rule here in the Canberra LA is what i was thinking because of the extra MLAs. Nice political move to expand the number of MLAs and shore up the Gungahlin/Belco votes for Labor in the LA via the Light Rail. What will these new MLAs and Ministers do anyway ? Come up with more great cost saving ideas, more Sky Whales, more High Court Challenges that are doomed to failure, further increases to annual Rates and Gov’t charges to pay for the extra wages/accommodation/travel bills, etc. Given voting trends here, the ACT Labor Gov’t can essentially do what it likes. Just as well Canberra voters are so apathetic.

Tuggers infrastructure ? Two main ones are : (1) Severe shortage of land for new developments compared to Belco/Gungahlin which drives up cost of housing here, (2) No real improvements to road system for many years (a small concession now with duplication of Erindale drive the short distance between Sternberg Cres and Ashley drive (that was the cheapest possible option by ACT Gov’t to shut the complainers up !). Like Belco, crap road resealling and speed humps/pads everywhere.
I wonder how safe the Labor MLAs in the LA who represent Tuggers feel !

Hmmm. Belconnen is an uber-safe Labor seat (federally) and can be relied on to give three non-liberal seats (locally) that help to virtually guarantee Labor’s ongoing rule in the ACT.

Please excuse my ignorance of all things south, but what is it that Tuggers doesn’t get that Belco does? It seems to me the two areas are on a par, with Belco doing slightly better during the reign of Stanhope (other than school closures, where his protection services were more focused).

Beilkje-Petersen would be proud of this ACT Government…..don’t you worry about that.

goggles13 said :

light rail will never help Canberra become a sustainable city unless it is built in more parts of Canberra instead of a single line from Gungahlin to Civic.

Unfortunately I fear the disaster of the Edinburgh Tram is going to be repeated here. Their cost blowout (almost tripled the original budget) has meant that in the end they had to reduce the length of the planned single line.

johnboy said :

The light rail was announced prior to the election so the more conspiratorial aspects of you post are off base.

Not sure what u mean. It is an undeniable fact that most of the infrastructure projects/budget are in Gungahlin. Yes – the Light rail for Gungahlin was announced prior to the election and IMHO, helped Labor offset the swing against it in Tuggers. Hence, it is a payback. Now, I wonder if the final EY business case will be released for public comment/view ?

Personally, as long as the Greens support Labor, I can not see how the Libs will ever be able to form a Government in the ACT. Unless the extra MLAs to be voted in upset that situation somewhat. So, Labor can do what it wants actually. Is it too late for some sort of Federal intervention here ????

HiddenDragon said :

Conspiracy theories aside, every tax/rate/fee payer across the length and breadth of the ACT will be paying, in perpetuity, for the Northern Line. Let’s just hope the Commission of Audit persuades the Feds to loosen and cut the strings on enough grants so that some of the money meant for other purposes can be diverted to pay for this lovely idea.

Money that would be also spent elsewhere.

John boy, the fact it was before the election doesn’t rule out the predictions that we knew Tuggeranong was going to reject Labor. Why do we think zed tried to spur on the south side revolt. The south would do better if it was separately managed the party system is a huge failing in this regard.

Conspiracy theories aside, every tax/rate/fee payer across the length and breadth of the ACT will be paying, in perpetuity, for the Northern Line. Let’s just hope the Commission of Audit persuades the Feds to loosen and cut the strings on enough grants so that some of the money meant for other purposes can be diverted to pay for this lovely idea.

Well, I’ll be. Surprisingly, it just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it ! The arrogance of the ACT Gov’t – this seems to be a huge conflict of interest. Like, EYs final business case will be a negative ? Right. That would write them out of their future revenue stream from also being the “economic and commercial adviser” to the Light Raid project, wouldn’t it. Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

In my experience, consultants/contractors who write a “business case” are specifically excluded from bidding on any flow on works. Obviously, the chances of a corrupted/biased final business case would be much higher if they were not. I wonder what the ACT auditor General will think of all this – but it will be after the event anyway.

Now, which ACT Labor MLAs electorates will benefit from this light rail project, I wonder ??????

No doubt that’s why Tuggeranong is treated so poorly in terms of infrastructure projects. As I recall, Tuggers voted marginally more for the Libs ? I thought it was the strong Labor vote in Gungahlin that got Gallagher into a position to form a minority Government, courtesy of Rattenbury. If so, payback. But I’ll happily stand corrected on that.

Anyway, just another great economic decision by this tin pot ACT local Government council. It really is like living in “Noddy Land”, but governed by the Keystone Cops, here in the ACT now.

So no conflict of interest there Simon? that the one doing the business case is also the ‘project’s economic and commercial advisor.’

So if they say it shouldn’t be done then they lose themselves more work.

How could it possibly go wrong.

If there is so much economic benefit why are we wasting money having busses go everywhere else. Just get rid of all the buses and put rail everywhere.

Of course it would cost too much to get rid of traffic lights on northborne, much much cheaper to put in a train.