Ahh Bracksy... you've done it again!
Another frighteningly massive blowout on a major project - this time the seemingly never to be completed regional rail projects that helped Steve Bracks get elected all the way back in 1999. Check out some of the commentary here and here
These rail projects were originally an $80 million commitment by the then Opposition leader but now we taxpayers are being told they are shoveling $750 million of our money to achieve pitiful outcomes such as reducing the Melbourne-Geelong commute by a pathetic six minutes.
Today's revelations, which our sad little Transport Minister Peter Batchelor is trying to attribute entirely to new security features (pleeease!), come hard on the heels of the estimated $200 million blowout at the redevelopment of Spencer Street Station which has caused a fair bit of damage to the finances and reputation of Leighton Holdings.
Remember Federation Square? When previous premier Jeffry Gibb Kennett first announced the plan in 1996 it was going to cost just $100 million and be finished by 2000 - in time for the Federation celebrations. Well, the final cost to taxpayers ended up being $462 million - and it was finished two years late.
And what about the redevelopment of the MCG - that also blew out by more than $100 million and is still only half built.
Then you have the Commonwealth Games which at the time of the 1999 election was going to cost taxpayers $300 million in operating expenses and $97 million in capital investment. Crikey reminds what red ragger Ken Davidson wrote in The Age earlier this month:
"But the 2006 Games are certainly not an event that deserve the expenditure by the Victorian Government of $474 million on hosting the event (and bear in mind that that figure excludes the $225 million cost of capital works) plus a further $272.5 million top-up provided by the Federal Government. (These figures are derived from the Victorian Auditor-General's report on state finances for 2003-04, released last month.)"
Meanwhile, the Bracks government gazumped Queensland on the synchrotron deal but there is no doubt that the thing would be costing less than $220 million if it was being built by the far more efficient Queensland construction workers....rather than the inefficient, militant mob we have here in Victoria.
The synchrotron started as a $100 million project which then blew out to $157 million and is now at $220 million and rising fast.
And lets not even talk about the Mitcham-Frankston Freeway Tollway... The list goes on and on.
Has this bungling, mismanaging government delivered any of it's major projects on time or on budget?
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