Wednesday, 21 September 2022

 Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (12:51): (1989) My constituency question is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. My question is: Minister, on what basis do you reject today’s findings from the Auditor-General regarding the so-called Suburban Rail Loop? The minister has responded to this stunning report by saying she ‘respectfully disagrees’ with that assessment. That assessment from the independent Auditor-General’s office is that the Suburban Rail Loop simply does not stack up. In fact the assessment from the Auditor-General is even worse than the previous assessment by the independent, apolitical Parliamentary Budget Office. The assessment today is that the benefit-cost ratio for this project is 0.5—0.5! I remember when the Labor Party railed against projects with a BCR of 1.4. We are going to be wasting 50 cents on the dollar. The minister previously has said she respectfully disagrees with the PBO, Infrastructure Australia, Infrastructure Victoria, the Grattan Institute and the Rail Futures Institute, just to name a few. Now she is at odds also with the independent Auditor-General’s office. On what basis does she disagree this time with another catastrophic independent assessment of this dog of a project?