Mrs Roberts asks the Minister for Transport to table information regarding the source of a $330 million figure related to new railcars, after the Director General denied advising the Minister of that figure. The Minister avoids directly answering, stating the information was either from the agency or public domain, and emphasizes the lower cost of $160 million achieved.

AnsweredQoN 363Legislative Assembly
Asked
15 June 2011
Portfolio
Transport

QuestionView source ↗

Metropolitan Railways — New Railcars
I ask a supplementary question. Given that the director general advised yesterday that neither he nor his department had advised the minister of the figure of $330 million, will he table information on where he got that advice from? Mr T.R. BUSWELL

AnswerView source ↗

As I said, it was either provided to me by the agency or it may have been information that was otherwise in the public domain at that time. Either way, the facts of the matter are that we will be delivering 45 railcars at a cost of $160 million. I know it hurts the opposition that we rolled our sleeves up and came up with a very, very competitive quote. I do not think that is a bad outcome. I am pretty pleased with that outcome. I do not apologise for the fact that we insisted that the Public Transport Authority went back and did some hard work to come up with a properly costed business model that represents value for money. I know it disappoints and hurts the opposition, but the runs are on the board.
Mr T.R. BUSWELL replied: As I said, it was either provided to me by the agency or it may have been information that was otherwise in the public domain at that time. Either way, the facts of the matter are that we will be delivering 45 railcars at a cost of $160 million. I know it hurts the opposition that we rolled our sleeves up and came up with a very, very competitive quote. I do not think that is a bad outcome. I am pretty pleased with that outcome. I do not apologise for the fact that we insisted that the Public Transport Authority went back and did some hard work to come up with a properly costed business model that represents value for money. I know it disappoints and hurts the opposition, but the runs are on the board.
As I said, it was either provided to me by the agency or it may have been information that was otherwise in the public domain at that time. Either way, the facts of the matter are that we will be delivering 45 railcars at a cost of $160 million. I know it hurts the opposition that we rolled our sleeves up and came up with a very, very competitive quote. I do not think that is a bad outcome. I am pretty pleased with that outcome. I do not apologise for the fact that we insisted that the Public Transport Authority went back and did some hard work to come up with a properly costed business model that represents value for money. I know it disappoints and hurts the opposition, but the runs are on the board.

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