MAJOR PROJECTS — STATUS
420. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Premier:
I refer to the Auditor General's
2022 transparency report that finds the Tonkin Highway gap project blown out by
$230 million and the Forrestfield–Airport Link is two years behind
schedule. Given the Auditor General's finding that progress on major projects has not been adequately reported by the
government and given the Premier promised to govern with gold-standard
transparency, will the Premier implement the Auditor General's
recommendation to regularly disclose the timing, cost and status of major
projects to Parliament and the public?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
Firstly,
on the broader issue about delays to projects and cost increases, that is not a
situation unique to Western Australia, or even Australia. That situation
exists around the world. There is a range of reasons for that, particularly
related to the ongoing impact of COVID on
supply chain delivery and the availability of relevant workforces. Governments
all over the world over the course of the last two years did a lot of capital
works and committed to a lot of capital works. That has meant that there are
shortages of relevant tradespeople and also materials. In a lot of the
countries where some of the materials we use
come from, a lot of their industry closed down for lots of time and supply
chain difficulties have been
extraordinary. There have been cost increases; steel costs have gone up 40 per
cent and timber prices by 20 per
cent. This is occurring all over the place. It is occurring in the housing
market. It occurs everywhere. I do not understand why the opposition
does not understand that.
The
government has a record infrastructure program of $34 billion, but we have had
to smooth some of that because of the
extraordinary demand, both public and private. Other states are going through
exactly the same thing. New South
Wales has massive rail projects. To build a 10-kilometre rail project there
costs $10 billion. Its rail project to
build one of 10 kilometres is the equivalent of more than 16 projects here,
including the actual railcar construction that we undertake. That is a situation
that subsists in other states.
The sorts of things we have put in
place to strengthen transparency and accountability for the delivery of major
projects include the establishment of Infrastructure WA, which was a recommendation
of the Langoulant inquiry. We developed the state infrastructure strategy,
which is currently with government, as required under the law, for comment before we finalise our position on it. We
created the infrastructure delivery unit in the major projects unit in the Department of Finance. We established the
major projects expenditure review subcommittee to have oversight of the
cost and management of projects. We have put in place procurement reform,
including the introduction of the Procurement Act 2020 and a consolidated
procurement framework that reduces red tape and increases public commentary. We
also allow for all the relevant parliamentary processes. We ensured the
reappointment of the Corruption and Crime
Commissioner, who the Liberal Party and Nationals WA blocked, members might
recall, based upon the fact that he investigated the Liberal Party, so
it blocked his reappointment. We had to deal with that.
Dr D.J. Honey: That is just
an offensive statement.
Mr M. McGOWAN: It is a true
statement.
Dr D.J. Honey: No, it is an
offensive statement.
Mr M. McGOWAN: Let us go into
that. I am glad the member interjected; now I can go into that.
We had Mr Chown. Remember Mr Chown?
He was on the committee. What happened? He had been investigated by the CCC,
which found some pretty nefarious activities on his behalf. What did he do? He
then blocked the reappointment of the CCC commissioner.
Several members interjected.
Mr M. McGOWAN: That is
exactly what occurred. That is actually corrupt. We had to legislate to overcome
that corruption created by the Liberal
Party. That is what occurred. Members might note that there are other
investigations and other matters going forward, as we speak, publicly. I
saw one on Channel Seven news the other night involving some members of the
Liberal Party. That is an ongoing consequence of some of the actions of some
Liberal Party members investigated by the CCC.
In any event, that is a range of the
transparency initiatives we have put in place, but cost increases and delays
have occurred all over the world.