Canal costings (again)
On Friday I highlighted a small article about Colin Barnett’s reluctance to include his canal project as a liability on the budget ledger. This is the one aspect of the Liberal campaign that might worry the business community enough to pull back some of their support for a Barnett Government.
Even the West Australian was unable to ignore this story, because reputable accounting firms don’t believe Barnett’s proposed approach is legitimage. As Steve Pennells wrote yesterday:
[I]f Mr Barnett thinks he can keep the canal off the State’s balance sheet, the ratings agencies which determine WA’s credit rating will not see it the same way.
Standard and Poor’s own guidelines do not ignore public-private partnerships, and any analysis of the State’s financial position and whether it retains its AAA-rating is almost certain to include the pipeline.
“Long-term financial commitments entered into by States therough PPP projects are fully factored into the State’s rating on a risk-adjusted basis,” the guidelines read.
(Despite this criticism, the West’s main article about the canal linked unpopular former premer Brian Burke with its opponents, and included a large, unflattering picture of Burke from the WA Inc period.)
Barnett’s costings were further undermined by a Water Corporation report on the Tenix plan:
A Water Corporation evaluation, completed on Friday and obtained by The Sunday Times, shows the canal would cost about $6 billion, not $2 billion as Mr Barnett insists.
And the Department of Treasury and Finance has concluded that average household water bills would increase by an extra $389 a year. The average household water bill now is $313.
The Treasury analysis said if the canal was to cost $10 billion — as predicted by the Australian Water Association — the average household water bill would escalate by 267 per cent, or an extra $834 a year.
The Water Corporation’s estimate has been questioned by Jorg Imberger, a long-term critic of the government. He says the bill won’t exceed $3 billion, but like Tenix and Barnett, he doesn’t include costs like land acquisition (a swathe of land at least 30m wide and 3700km long won’t be cheap), water treatment or other related infrastructure.
Unforeseen environmental impacts will also be costly. On Saturday, Colin Barnett recently ruled out an alternative proposal, saying: “The Yarragadee mound — we don’t yet understand the environmental consequences of drawing that water.” But he’s committed to the canal without an environmental impact assessment!
Labor doesn’t need to win this argument. There are now four or five alternative costings on the canal, along with serious questions about the environment and other issues. People who are drawn to the “grand vision” of the canal will be put off by this kind of uncertainty, and Barnett’s attempt to brush off critics as “knockers” doesn’t seem to have worked. All Labor has to do is keep criticism of the plan (or rather, the Coalition’s rash decision) on the nightly news, and wait for Barnett to lose his temper.
Labor’s announcement that it will create a new Water portfolio with Geoff Gallop at the helm will ensure the former; as to the latter — well, with cracks emerging between the coalition parties — and Max Trenorden’s relationship with Barnett has never been great — there’s every chance we’ll see Barnett’s “pale skin turning 16 shades of crimson — an unfortunate personal tic when the Liberal leader turns irate”.
It’s good to see The Coalition fighting amongst themselbves :-)
Notice Colon used his Campaign launch to pitch the “Law & Order” issue ? Also, The West’s “Peds in Kiddies Hospital Beds” “story” is another little exercise in Gallop Bashing – and Michelle Stubs letters about Mandatorty Reporting omits the detail of not declaring the fact that she’s the Liberal candidate for Bassendean has proven that they’ll do ANUTHING to get Barnett in as premier.
Also, good to see Graeme Aemstrong comparing Colin’s Canal to WA Inc :-)
Have a look at Steve Pennells column on p9 in today’s (M0nday 14th) West. Can you believe anyone who works for the West could complain about alleged political bias in another newspaper and say, “As a journalist it makes me ashamed of my trade”?
What sort of parallel universe does this guy live in. The Sunaday Times (a Murdoch tabloid hardly known for its left wing stance) rightly questions the ridiculous figures for the cost of the canal that Barnett, Tenix and the West are peddling and they are biased!
Doesn’t Pennells read his own paper? It could hardly be more biased if it was written in Menzies House.
Twiggy, totally agreed, classic cas of Pot Calling THe Kettle Black I reckon Armstrong is writing all the articles and putting other Journo’s names on it.
The Sunday Crimes doesn’t like the Libs in WA. Also, listening to the Colin Barnett lovefest on Paul Murray’s show is sickening.
Sent this to the letters page of the West-doubt it will get published.
The current editorial team on this newspaper will go down in journalistic folklore as the most biased, partisan and unprofessional bunch of ratbags ever to run a newspaper in this country. You are incapable of being non-sensational, fair and reasoned. It seems that you are running a vicious vendetta against the Labor government as evidenced by your choice of stories, particularly front-page ones, and by the omission of others that would reflect badly on the LIberals.
So we have a few powercuts because the weather affects power lines. It has been so for the last 50 years probably but you make out like its the end of the civilized world and is the personal fault of Geoff Gallop. Just what was the record when Barnett was Minister of Energy? I seem to remember just as many outages but I doubt that you will get the figures because that would require research.
When you published those figures about 10 per cent of households having power cuts you deliberately misrepresented the facts by omitting to mention that 7 out of 10 of those were caused by factors outside the control of Western Power.
I don’t rememebr seeing a headline “Barnett in strife” when he was behind in the polls, but you couldn’t wait to headline “Gallop in strife”. I don’t see any headlines like “Coalition in turmoil”, or “Barnett’s plans lack finanancial responsibility”.
I have refused to buy your Liberal mouthpiece rag for the last 4 months and am encouraging others to do the same.
Pennells is angry that the leak went to the Sunday Times rather than to him. He is over-reacting to the fact that the Water Corp figures are an estimate (he calls them a “guess”) — so are Tenix’s claims. The point is, nobody will know what the cost is until a feasibility is conducted. That’s why Tenix wants to spend $15 million on a feasibility study!
Also, there is a well known feud between The West and The Sunday times, with Armstrong referring to the Sunday Crimes as a “Sheltered Workshop”. also, wasn’t Paul Murray a former Columnist who was dumped by the Crimes ??
http://www.waliberals.net/walibs/news_view.aspx?L=269
Canal Attack Backfires
The Gallop Labor Government’s desperate attempt to discredit the Kimberley Canal project — which it is spending $5 million of taxpayers’ money to “investigate” — has backfired dramatically this morning.
Costings on the canal project which the Water Corporation and State Treasury were ordered to undertake by a Government determined to ensure the canal is never built have been exposed as a sham by no less than the Chief Executive Officer of the Water Corporation, Jim Gill.
In an interview on 6PR radio this morning, Mr Gill conceded that the Sunday Times was plain wrong to claim the Water Corporation had costed the canal at $6 billion.
Of Course Dr Gill was interviewed from Liberal syncopat “Paul “I Love Colin & Tenix” Murray. Do you expect Murray to give Gill a free run – remember Gill is from the the Public Service, aka Gallop.
People don’t remember that DR Gill was Commissioner of Railways when Eric The Tractor Driver Charlton removed the successful Passenger Service Assistants, and replaced them with those hired Chubb Goons.
Th Truth hurts, doesn’t it Colon
OFF TOPIC.
Robert, your stance on One Vote One Value has been made more than clear in the past, for example here, where you describe the status quo in WA’s electoral system an “outrageous and anti-democratic gerrymander” cynically maintained by the Greens, who put “shallow party-political interests above the fundamental democratic rights of the Western Australian people”.
How then, do you react to Premier Geoff Gallop’s announcement on Friday that his Government would no longer pursue OVOV in the five Lower House seats in the Mining and Pastoral district?
Gareth, my view has not changed. Vote-weighting is inappropriate in the lower house. However, I think geographically large electorates require extra resources — more staff (perhaps two electorate offices), bigger travel and postage budgets, etc.
The Premier’s media release is not clear as to how the five seats would be maintained. If is not necessarily incompatible with 1V1V — new seats in the South-West might be created to introduce balance. I’ll reserve judgment until I see more details.
No worries, would be good to see a post on the topic when those details emerge.
You’re not writing an article on it by any chance?
I note The West brought out al;l guns blazing in today’s Editoral hanging shit on the Sunday Crimes – and not realising the hypocrisy of the fact that The West is mouthing the words of Paul Everingham without question as well.
Also, see that pathetic attack re the Peds in PMH beds that the “spin doctors” are glossing over the fact that all porn is evil no questions.
The West are fuckwits :-)
No Robert, I’m not. Like you, anything that appears on this blog from me is just one bloke and his opinion.
ABC TV News has just revealed that the only company that builds water cannons for colin to spray on hooligans is our old friends at Tenix :-)
Talk about mutual arse licking :-)
hmm, Charlie Court has even come out against the Canal – http://www.thewest.com.au/20050217/news/general/tw-news-general-home-sto130490.html
Sir Charles Court, the former Liberal premier credited with having the vision which led to the construction of the vital Dampier-to-Bunbury gas pipeline, has opposed any plans to transport water from the Kimberley to Perth.
The man widely seen as one of the State’s industrial pioneers declined to comment yesterday on the coalition’s water canal proposal, saying only that his view was well known within the Liberal Party.
But Will Colin Listen ??
Mr Barnett would not respond to Sir Charles’ comments but repeated his claims that the canal was critical. “One of the biggest impediments to industry development in the north, for example, is the lack of a secure water supply,” he said
Doesn’t look like it.