The aquatic GDE?

eily said :

goggles13 said :

random said :

I am much more interested in voting Liberal, however, if the subtext is that they will be appointing an Infrastructure Commissioner with the magical power to control the weather. That’s just the sort of ambitious campaign promise we need to liven up politics in this town.

+2

it’s hard to be critical of the project as it has been delayed by something no one can control.

at least it hasn’t been built once, and then rebuilt to meet requirements. unlike the GDE.

Or the original dam.

Which was built early last century and then heightened some time in the fifties…so this could be seen as the third attempt.

yes but there were significant time gaps between the rebuilds of the Cotter unlike the GDE.

This was on the news the other night. The Libs were blaming the ALP for not starting the dam sooner, so it would be finished before the drought broke.

Can anyone remember whether the Libs had a policy of building a dam that never got up – either when they were in power or afterwards?

They’re stretching it a bit to say anyone could have predicted the recent rains (the words ‘record breaking’ might give a hint), but I still wonder at how ACTEW found seismic technicians who couldn’t detect a bit of extra hard rock before starting blasting.

There’s a broader issue of risk management and planning that everyone is fairly quiet about.

Where are the Greens?

trevar said :

I would also vote for a policy of having an army of elves that poke slow-walking people in the back of the knee and tell them to hurry up.[/quote>

I was a walker but then I took a finger to the knee.

“Through our Infrastructure Canberra policy, we will develop a long term infrastructure strategy which takes into account prospective economic variables.”

What, they’ll have a psychic, a magic 8 ball and a temporal singularity so they can be the see all, hear all, predict all saviours of infrastructure projects? What a croc.

They’re saying either:
a) they would never have built a much needed additional water supply, or
b) they would have massively inflated the budget in the first instance so from a PR perspective, there’s no blow outs, it either comes in on budget or without these unprecedented rain events way under budget.

All they’re saying is they would have packaged the exact same thing differently.

goggles13 said :

random said :

I am much more interested in voting Liberal, however, if the subtext is that they will be appointing an Infrastructure Commissioner with the magical power to control the weather. That’s just the sort of ambitious campaign promise we need to liven up politics in this town.

+2

it’s hard to be critical of the project as it has been delayed by something no one can control.

at least it hasn’t been built once, and then rebuilt to meet requirements. unlike the GDE.

Or the original dam.

Which was built early last century and then heightened some time in the fifties…so this could be seen as the third attempt.

random said :

I am much more interested in voting Liberal, however, if the subtext is that they will be appointing an Infrastructure Commissioner with the magical power to control the weather. That’s just the sort of ambitious campaign promise we need to liven up politics in this town.

I’m not sure even the libs could have predicted that we might have rain at any time in the year 2012.
Very unlucky for ACTEW that they built the dam in a year we had rain!

ACT Labor has tried to soften the ground for a budget blowout, blaming it in advance on the floods, but we now know beyond doubt that the floods are not to blame. The government has already spent $315.7 million of the allocated $363 million

Yep. Those floods – first rain we’ve had in years. Definitely no flooding rains before now. The old dam definitely didn’t flow over and wash away earthworks before now. Up until now, a ray of sunshine filled with fairy kisses has shone down on the dam construction site daily, and there are no excuses for the project to be over budget. And rainbows. The site’s been surrounded by rainbows – and double rainbows – constantly. Not from rain mind you – these are leprechaun rainbows. No excuses.

random said :

I am much more interested in voting Liberal, however, if the subtext is that they will be appointing an Infrastructure Commissioner with the magical power to control the weather. That’s just the sort of ambitious campaign promise we need to liven up politics in this town.

+2

it’s hard to be critical of the project as it has been delayed by something no one can control.

at least it hasn’t been built once, and then rebuilt to meet requirements. unlike the GDE.

The Libs would have fixed it. They would have built the dam for $100.

And sent those goddam public school kids to work.

Some poor bastard at Liberal HQ is busily writing down all those policy suggestions. what a sorry bunch of no-hopers they are. The trouble is, Sausage-face isn’t asking hard questions, she’s scoring some cheap points. Some hard questions would be good, about how the funds are allocated, what process there is to protect the taxpayers from rapacious contractors. Why do these project continually blow out? Can we appoint the airport as contract allocators and managers from now on?