Ms MARTIN - 1999-06-08
At your railway talks last week you had the ideal situation to squeeze more money out of the Prime Minister. As you know, he’s publicly committed to the railway and as well as that the federal Opposition Leader has committed up to $300m for the project. Chief Minister, will you confirm you’ve failed to get the Prime Minister to come up with the extra funds, and how much extra will Territory taxpayers have to pay because of your failure?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, the shallowness of the opposition’s questions never ceases to amaze me. The explanations with regards to the meetings that I and Premier Olsen had with the Prime Minister were explained in this House last week. They were constructive and productive meetings leading to the parameters from which the negotiators, the Australian Railways Corporation, can now negotiate with the preferred bidder, the Asia Pacific Consortium, with regards to what final deal will be struck.
In terms of $300m being offered by Labor for the project, anyone can offer that sort of money when you’re in opposition and you don’t have control of the purse strings. But can I assure honourable members that there are 3 stakeholders in this project: the Northern Territory Government, the South Australian Government and the Commonwealth government. Those 3 stakeholders remain firmly committed to the project.
It’s very pleasing to see the NT News article today which recognises the important milestone that has been reached in moving to Stage 3 in this process, because the difficulty in moving through the first 2 stages can never be underestimated. We are now at Stage 3. We now have a robust consortium in place. a consortium that is committed to this project. Final negotiations will now be conducted leading to the final figure as to what the parameters will be in terms of the decision and a tender close on this project.
I will be meeting the Prime Minister again with Premier Olsen, once the negotiators have completed those negotiations and, as I said in the Assembly last week, I believe this railway will be built and I believe that we will reach a successful conclusion to this project. I firmly believe that a tender will be struck towards the end of this year. I firmly believe the construction will begin early next year and I firmly believe this will be done in the absence of real Labor Party support. The only Labor Party utterances have been the sort of shallowness that we’ve just heard from this sort of question, which again only shows the Leader of the Opposition’s desire to get any sort of media attention, and her attempt to denigrate me is something that really I’m not interested in. My only interest is the successful conclusion of this project. My only interest is to see a major infrastructure project for Australia and the Northern Territory, to be built in the Northern Territory, and I’m absolutely confident that will occur.
Ms MARTIN: My supplementary question is the second part of the question. How much extra will Territory taxpayers have to pay because you failed to get extra funds from the Prime Minister?
Mr BURKE: I’ll take the opportunity to answer that question and I would refer to one of the consortium principals on radio this morning. I forget his exact words but they were along the lines that it is overly simplistic to talk about dollars at this stage. These are careful and sensitive negotiations but a question that is overly simplistic from the Leader of the Opposition is part of and true to her form.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, the shallowness of the opposition’s questions never ceases to amaze me. The explanations with regards to the meetings that I and Premier Olsen had with the Prime Minister were explained in this House last week. They were constructive and productive meetings leading to the parameters from which the negotiators, the Australian Railways Corporation, can now negotiate with the preferred bidder, the Asia Pacific Consortium, with regards to what final deal will be struck.
In terms of $300m being offered by Labor for the project, anyone can offer that sort of money when you’re in opposition and you don’t have control of the purse strings. But can I assure honourable members that there are 3 stakeholders in this project: the Northern Territory Government, the South Australian Government and the Commonwealth government. Those 3 stakeholders remain firmly committed to the project.
It’s very pleasing to see the NT News article today which recognises the important milestone that has been reached in moving to Stage 3 in this process, because the difficulty in moving through the first 2 stages can never be underestimated. We are now at Stage 3. We now have a robust consortium in place. a consortium that is committed to this project. Final negotiations will now be conducted leading to the final figure as to what the parameters will be in terms of the decision and a tender close on this project.
I will be meeting the Prime Minister again with Premier Olsen, once the negotiators have completed those negotiations and, as I said in the Assembly last week, I believe this railway will be built and I believe that we will reach a successful conclusion to this project. I firmly believe that a tender will be struck towards the end of this year. I firmly believe the construction will begin early next year and I firmly believe this will be done in the absence of real Labor Party support. The only Labor Party utterances have been the sort of shallowness that we’ve just heard from this sort of question, which again only shows the Leader of the Opposition’s desire to get any sort of media attention, and her attempt to denigrate me is something that really I’m not interested in. My only interest is the successful conclusion of this project. My only interest is to see a major infrastructure project for Australia and the Northern Territory, to be built in the Northern Territory, and I’m absolutely confident that will occur.
Ms MARTIN: My supplementary question is the second part of the question. How much extra will Territory taxpayers have to pay because you failed to get extra funds from the Prime Minister?
Mr BURKE: I’ll take the opportunity to answer that question and I would refer to one of the consortium principals on radio this morning. I forget his exact words but they were along the lines that it is overly simplistic to talk about dollars at this stage. These are careful and sensitive negotiations but a question that is overly simplistic from the Leader of the Opposition is part of and true to her form.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016