❓ Questioning the Minister about the Southern Rail Link funding allocation in the budget and potential budgetary pressures. The Minister defends the government's approach, citing necessary revisions to the project and a commitment to fulfilling election promises.
AnsweredQoN 450Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
SOUTHERN RAIL LINK, FUNDING 450. Mrs HODSON-THOMAS to the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure: I refer the minister to page 917 of the 2001-02 budget papers that indicate the Government has budgeted only $67 million, or around five per cent of the total budgeted cost, for the southern rail link, and ask - (1) Will the minister admit that the remaining 95 per cent of the cost of the southern rail link will place considerable pressure on Labor’s budgets in the second, third and fourth years of the current term? (2) Is the minister aware that the majority of the cost of the southern rail link has been pushed out beyond the current term of the Government? (3) Will the minister admit that this is just one example of many of Labor’s major election promises in her portfolio to which little or no funding has been allocated this financial year, for example, the Tom Price-Karratha road which is only one per cent funded? Ms MacTIERNAN
AnswerView source ↗
(1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
SOUTHERN RAIL LINK, FUNDING
I refer the minister to page 917 of the 2001-02 budget papers that indicate the Government has budgeted only $67 million, or around five per cent of the total budgeted cost, for the southern rail link, and ask - (1) Will the minister admit that the remaining 95 per cent of the cost of the southern rail link will place considerable pressure on Labor’s budgets in the second, third and fourth years of the current term? (2) Is the minister aware that the majority of the cost of the southern rail link has been pushed out beyond the current term of the Government? (3) Will the minister admit that this is just one example of many of Labor’s major election promises in her portfolio to which little or no funding has been allocated this financial year, for example, the Tom Price-Karratha road which is only one per cent funded? Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
(1) Will the minister admit that the remaining 95 per cent of the cost of the southern rail link will place considerable pressure on Labor’s budgets in the second, third and fourth years of the current term? (2) Is the minister aware that the majority of the cost of the southern rail link has been pushed out beyond the current term of the Government? (3) Will the minister admit that this is just one example of many of Labor’s major election promises in her portfolio to which little or no funding has been allocated this financial year, for example, the Tom Price-Karratha road which is only one per cent funded? Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
(2) Is the minister aware that the majority of the cost of the southern rail link has been pushed out beyond the current term of the Government? (3) Will the minister admit that this is just one example of many of Labor’s major election promises in her portfolio to which little or no funding has been allocated this financial year, for example, the Tom Price-Karratha road which is only one per cent funded? Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
(3) Will the minister admit that this is just one example of many of Labor’s major election promises in her portfolio to which little or no funding has been allocated this financial year, for example, the Tom Price-Karratha road which is only one per cent funded? Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
(1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
SOUTHERN RAIL LINK, FUNDING
I refer the minister to page 917 of the 2001-02 budget papers that indicate the Government has budgeted only $67 million, or around five per cent of the total budgeted cost, for the southern rail link, and ask - (1) Will the minister admit that the remaining 95 per cent of the cost of the southern rail link will place considerable pressure on Labor’s budgets in the second, third and fourth years of the current term? (2) Is the minister aware that the majority of the cost of the southern rail link has been pushed out beyond the current term of the Government? (3) Will the minister admit that this is just one example of many of Labor’s major election promises in her portfolio to which little or no funding has been allocated this financial year, for example, the Tom Price-Karratha road which is only one per cent funded? Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
(1) Will the minister admit that the remaining 95 per cent of the cost of the southern rail link will place considerable pressure on Labor’s budgets in the second, third and fourth years of the current term? (2) Is the minister aware that the majority of the cost of the southern rail link has been pushed out beyond the current term of the Government? (3) Will the minister admit that this is just one example of many of Labor’s major election promises in her portfolio to which little or no funding has been allocated this financial year, for example, the Tom Price-Karratha road which is only one per cent funded? Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
(2) Is the minister aware that the majority of the cost of the southern rail link has been pushed out beyond the current term of the Government? (3) Will the minister admit that this is just one example of many of Labor’s major election promises in her portfolio to which little or no funding has been allocated this financial year, for example, the Tom Price-Karratha road which is only one per cent funded? Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
(3) Will the minister admit that this is just one example of many of Labor’s major election promises in her portfolio to which little or no funding has been allocated this financial year, for example, the Tom Price-Karratha road which is only one per cent funded? Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
Ms MacTIERNAN replied: (1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
(1)-(3) The answer to (3) is no. In fact all of our election promises have been met in planning and infrastructure. I have explained before that when we got into government we discovered that the proposal for the Kenwick route for the south west corridor was an irresponsible decision by the previous Government. It would have undermined public transport planning in this State for the next three decades. We had to unravel that decision and had to revisit the project to do that. Indeed, the member’s address to the Parliament this morning urged the Government to take time to ensure that it got the new route absolutely right. I can tell the member that that is exactly what we are doing and that is the reason we have had to delay the completion of that rail to 2006. We regret that delay but it is because we need to get it right. We are not prepared to spend $1.2 million sending a rail link via the North Pole; that simply was not on. It will therefore take us an extra year to get right the engineering, consultation and planning, but we will do it. Because much of the rail link will be completed in 2005 and 2006, of course it is not in the current forward estimates; no-one would expect it to be. It will be funded, as we have set out in the budget, over the period until 2006. It is all accounted for and we will deliver on it.
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