Tag Archives: rort

Rudd Deserts Another Principle

7 May

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 6 May 2010:

“The release of the long-awaited NBN study today reveals that Prime Minister Rudd has deserted one more of his once closely-held principles,” Senator Barnaby Joyce, the Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Infrastructure and Water said today.

In the 2008-09 Budget the Government committed themselves to:

  • “Decision making based on rigorous cost-benefit analysis to ensure the highest economic and social benefits to the nation over the long term.”

But page two of the NBN implementation study explicitly states that it is not a “cost-benefit analysis of the macro-economic and social benefits.”

“The NBN study reveals another Labor broken promise,” Senator Joyce said today. “Two years ago Mr Rudd was talking up the benefits of establishing Infrastructure Australia and subjecting infrastructure investments to rigorous analysis. But on the biggest infrastructure project he has committed to he has deserted these principles, just as he has deserted the ETS.”

“Infrastructure Australia has been effectively gagged on the issue. Their public analysis has amounted to five paragraphs last year in ticking off on an investment of up to $4.7 billion from the Building Australia Fund. At almost $1 billion per paragraph, it wasn’t cheap advice. Minister Albanese, the Minister for Infrastructure, was missing in action.”

As Ken Henry, Secretary of the Treasury, stated last year:

  • “Government spending that does not pass an appropriately defined cost-benefit test necessarily detracts from Australia’s wellbeing. That is, when taxpayer funds are not put to their best use, Australia’s wellbeing is not as high as it otherwise could be.”

“Is it any wonder that this is a Government that has racked up $138 billion in debt and is continuing to borrow up to $2 billion a fortnight? Like much of this borrowing, the Government made its decision to spend $43 billion on the NBN in haste. In Senate Estimates last year it was revealed that NBN Mark II was conceived between Senator Conroy and the Prime Minister during two plane flights on Mr Rudd’s VIP jet” Senator Joyce said.

“The ‘back of the boarding pass’ approach to infrastructure selection must end. A Coalition Government will conduct and release cost-benefit analysis on infrastructure investments.”

More Information- Jenny Swan 07 46 251500

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The BER: Blatant Enormous Rip-off

23 Mar

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 23 March 2010:

The BER (Building Education Revolution) is quickly turning into the Blatant Enormous Rip-off.  They are talking to us in the shopping malls, they are writing to us, they are ringing us and emailing, the results are in. Australians do not like being financially “touched” and they feel the Labor Party has once more proven that economically it could not manage a chook raffle in a pub on a Friday night.

A civil engineer has told Senator Barnaby Joyce today that he is astounded that the public purse is being rorted to such a massive extent. He gives the example that at the Hendra State School in Brisbane, a proposed library is set to cost $628,000 for construction. This means that the library is costing the taxpayers of Australia over $4000 per square metre. On top of this is another $194,362 for consultant fees and design costs. Compare this to the average house. A private builder would be happy with $1500 per square metre and provide a better finished product.  The library will not be air-conditioned and is just a basic design. So how on earth does anyone get a cost at over twice the going rate?

How can Mr Tanner Mr Rudd and Mr Swan laud their economic management expertise and hold a straight face at the same time? You would have thought that after the ceiling insulation debacle and the ever escalating mountainous debt that prudence would have made them slightly more cautious in how they dealt with the money being borrowed to finance the school hall jaunt, as silly as the idea is. But the proof is in the pudding. No one seems to care. The curtains are open but no one’s financially home. They don’t care how the money is spent and they don’t know how the money will be repaid and they have no idea what money is actually worth. The mantra of go hard, go early, go household also must have included go into debt into your eyeballs and fall out of your financial tree.

More information- Jenny Swan 0438 578402

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