Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Deputy Speaker, I’ll just bring the temperature down a little bit and have a reasonable, straight conversation about what’s going on here because people who are watching might think this is a bit of a Monty Python moment, the way the former member has been speaking. He’s trying to develop a fake bogeyman here.
Mr Winter – Strawman.
Dr WOODRUFF – Yes, it’s a strawman argument, thank you. What he’s saying is that we can’t ask for an update on the information that they, the government, have already put on the public record because it is too dangerous to the tender process to have an update of an estimate that they talked about just in recent history, only a couple of months ago. Apparently, people who are tendering for big major projects in Australia don’t listen to things that happened a month or two ago and they wouldn’t bear that in mind, but getting an update on the same figure that they’ve already provided is somehow endangering the state’s finances and the tendering process. It’s a load of nonsense.
We all know that there are huge changes happening in the world, in the Middle East, and the impacts, we don’t feel them yet. Unfortunately, the pig is still in the python, and we haven’t felt the impact of having 20 per cent of the oil not leaving the Strait of Hormuz day after day, for over two months now. There has been supplies that exist in every country around the world, but those supplies are very close to being finished and we will not have the flow of oil coming through in the way it has been in the near future. None of us know what the impact of that will be and we all hope that we’ve got capacity to be able to manage the flow of materials and the life that we’ve got when the impact actually comes – it’s not here yet. But everybody agrees that the price of goods is going to go up dramatically in some areas – less so in other areas anything that relies on diesel, heavy machinery in particular, cranes, bulldozers, trucks reliant on diesel will see a large increase in costs. Anything that relies on plastics and plastic production is also highly likely to increase in cost, as is steel and concrete. These are the bedrock of building buildings like a stadium and all the supportive work required. All we’re doing is asking for an update on the figures. The reason we’re doing that is because this is a highly controversial issue and obviously, it’s clear the Greens don’t support the stadium project, but it was passed by the parliament. What we’re concerned about is the commitment that was made to parliament and to members of the Legislative Council who gave their support to the stadium, that the cost to build the stadium would be $1.13 billion and the letter to the honourable Bec Thomas MLC said:
The government has a high degree of confidence in the current $1.13 billion budget estimate.
What we’ve had ever since from the government is a reinforcement of that amount. We’ve also had a commitment which Mr Winter has spoken about, and we’ve already discussed in this place, that was made to the Public Accounts Committee by Ms Beach from the MPDC that there would be continual updating to the public, to the government, and through the Public Accounts Committee, of a report of the costs, of the ongoing change in the costs. Ms Beach said yes to all of those things, and Mr Evans said yes to all the above. They agreed wholeheartedly that they would keep the government, the public, and the Public Accounts Committee updated with the costs if they changed along the way.
Ms Beach also said that there were two elements to the cost estimate:
One is a cost plan. That’s done by our quantity surveyors. They do a linebyline review of the actual drawings and the volumes and materials of individual items … Then they add on top things like market-loading, contingencies, so client construction and design contingencies … It’s done on line by line.
Our point is that all of those factors have changed, all of those line by line cost estimates that were done at that, as Ms Beach said, ‘point in time’, will now be different. We don’t know how different, which is why we’re asking the government to provide us with the cost estimate, the latest cost estimate, for the build of the stadium, because there will be different increases. We can’t just put a flat amount across the whole of the stadium. We could put one estimate, which has been given by an eminent person, of 18.5 per cent from CBRE of forecast construction. We could do 18.5 per cent and that would take an extra odd $210 million on the on the stadium budget, but that isn’t an appropriate thing to do. It’s not a flat rate of change across the building process. We want to know what the latest cost estimate is because Tasmanians have a right to know. Because when Ms Beach says the $1.13 billion reflects the scope as we’re taking to market.
I just want to remind the government that the ‘we’ in her statement is the Tasmanian taxpayer.
Mr Bayley – Hear, hear.
Dr WOODRUFF – Tasmanian taxpayers are taking this to market. They are taking this to market through MPDC, through Ms Beach, and she is advocating for the Tasmanian taxpayer.
I want to refer to the nonsense from Mr Ferguson previously. I have never met a person who doesn’t, when they’re building their home, make a decision about how much they’re going to spend. I have never met a person who builds their home, who doesn’t have a conversation with builders and give them the ballpark figure that they’re expecting to spend and then have multiple people provide an estimate of the cost to build and there is a bidding process. Within that, some people will bid higher, some will cost more than others, and you can investigate each of the line items and challenge the tender estimate that’s provided. But every time it starts off with an estimate, as has occurred already. The government has already put out the cost estimate for the stadium. Therefore, it’s absolute garbage to pretend that they can’t do it again, and somehow at a closer point in time it’s going to impact the tendering process. We don’t buy it. I don’t think Tasmanians buy it at all.
It’s an important thing to do, because we need to have transparency about what will be the biggest spend in this budget of a government that is has taken us into a very dark space. The Liberals, who have managed our state finances appallingly, and we are now looking at a terrible debt. We have a right to know, Tasmanians have a right to know that they are managing and spending money wisely. It is incumbent on them to be honest and transparent.
I’ll conclude by mentioning from the Rider Levett Bucknall Report, by the author Oliver Nicholls, about the Middle East conflict and Australian construction costs in April. It reminds me that this report is a month old already. We have had another month on top of the words that Mr Nichols wrote; another month of oil not coming through the Strait of Hormuz. We don’t know yet the impacts. He said:
With escalation assumptions now highly uncertain and traditional forecasts based on pre-conflict conditions, relying on historic allowances alone risks under-provisioning budgets and contingencies.
Hear, hear. They are obviously sensible words. Ms Beach herself has also agreed that the cost estimate she did was a point in time. She has committed to providing to the public, the government and the Public Accounts Committee the actual changes as they come up.
Time Expired.
