Wednesday, 20 March 2019

 Ms STALEY (Ripon) (11:17): My question is to the Treasurer. When discussing the value of additional tolls to Transurban from the West Gate Tunnel deal, the Treasurer told Parliament in December 2017:

… let us be clear: the cost of this project in today’s dollars is $4 billion worth of capital works, $4 billion worth of toll revenue to Transurban.

In light of the Parliamentary Budget Office report, does the Treasurer stand by his answer or did he simply not understand what he was signing Victorians up to?

 Mr PALLAS (Werribee—Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (11:17): Yes, I understood, and I understand the difference between actual and nominal dollars, but apparently those opposite do not.

Members interjecting.

Mr PALLAS: Yes, I did, actually, and it was a very interesting report because the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) made a number of observations about his inability to effectively model because he did not have the full information before him, unlike—

Members interjecting.

Mr PALLAS: We do. We have that material.

Members interjecting.

Ms Staley: On a point of order, Speaker, in light of what the Treasurer has just said, I would like to make available to the house the PBO report, which shows that the additional revenue is $7.5 billion in nominal terms, up to $11.9—

The SPEAKER: Order! I ask the member for Ripon—

Ms Staley: On relevance to the question. He is not answering the question—he is debating it.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Treasurer is being relevant to the question. There is no point of order.

Mr PALLAS: If I were to buy a coffee a day for the next 27 years, in nominal terms that coffee would cost me about $67 000. And that is the sort of nonsense that happens when you try to compare current dollars to nominal dollars. The price of money and the opportunity cost of economic investment vary with time.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! I have warned the house already there is too much shouting across the chamber. Members will be removed from the chamber.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Hastings can leave the chamber for the period of 1 hour.

Member for Hastings withdrew from chamber.

Mr M O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, the question was simply: does the Treasurer stand by his answer where he said that Transurban were putting in $4 billion and getting out $4 billion? Is he actually standing by that answer given the contradictory numbers in the PBO report? I ask you to bring him back to answering that question.

The SPEAKER: Order! I understand the Treasurer was answering the question.

Mr PALLAS: My answer was absolutely correct in terms of actual dollars, today’s dollars. What the Parliamentary Budget Officer was looking at in the context of the $7.7 billion that he identified was all the risk transfer that was effectively occurring to Transurban, that they were taking on; for example, the management risk, the operational risk, the capital risk. All of those risks were effectively incorporated into the capital—

Members interjecting.

Mr PALLAS: Well, it is 27 years of actually meeting operational and capital costs in order to make that road continue to perform to specification. This idea that you can simply put a dollar price in today’s dollars and not accept that there are obligations that have real capital impacts over time, that is exactly what we have been saying. If you want to know what the capital cost for this project is, it is as the government has put on the record and consistently identified.

From our perspective, this is a project that absolutely has to happen and it is a project that those opposite have absolutely tried to stop. They have refused to accept the mandate that the people of Victoria gave us. They have refused even to acknowledge that they themselves applied these costings for the purposes of building their triple bypass. Where was the money to pay for that? ‘Fully costed, fully funded’—that is what they said. The dishonesty of the way that those opposite behave post the election—they have learned nothing and they have come nowhere and they continue to flout the mandate that this government has been given by the people of Victoria.

 Ms STALEY (Ripon) (11:22): Yesterday in the Legislative Council’s question time the Minister for Roads accepted the Parliamentary Budget Office’s calculation of the cost to motorists of $87 060 per person and admitted that:

I am sure it will not be universally popular.

Can the government name one single CityLink user, other than a Transurban shareholder, who is happy to pay $87 060 in extra tolls?

 Mr PALLAS (Werribee—Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (11:22): At the end of the day we have been very clear that the people of Victoria had to make a decision about how this project would be financed. We put it to them. So I suppose I can say by clear logical extension, if we got a mandate on the basis that we proposed to fund this $2 billion out of capital allocations from the state or thereabouts and essentially the rest being picked up in either new tolls for the West Gate Tunnel or indeed for a concession deed extension, if we got elected—with a thumping majority, might I say— in circumstances where those opposite had flip-flopped on their position right up until they decided they would adopt ours—

Mr Walsh: On a point of order, Speaker, on the issue of relevance, the question was very clear about asking the Treasurer did he know of one motorist, other than a Transurban shareholder, who was happy with paying $87 000 more in tolls. I ask you to bring him back to actually answering that question—just one person that is happy to pay $87 000 more.

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer is being relevant to the question.

Mr PALLAS: Just to clarify, I do not know what people’s individual choices are and nobody enjoys actually having to pay for tolls. Let me be very clear. However, I can say that the Victorian electorate clearly was happy for it, because they voted for it.