“We would be grateful if either Prime Minister Albanese or Chief Minister Barr would cease treating us with such contempt and release the light rail business case. Assuming that is, that a business case was prepared.” JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED revisit the political miseries of light rail.

We have written extensively in recent years about the claims made by the ACT government (including in the business case for Stage 1) about the merits of light rail. 

We have focused on the issues that the government claims that light rail will address and its impact on the ACT’s finances. 

We have also highlighted the regressive budgetary choices that the government has been forced to make because of the impact of light rail on the budget, most notably in diverting significant funds from public housing and the public hospital system. 

We have also noted the ongoing opportunity costs resulting from the diversion of funds to the construction of light rail including the fact that, to date, light rail has not engendered an increase in public transport usage but rather has resulted in a substitution of patronage from buses to the tram and, notably, at almost double the cost per boarding.

We are not alone, and fellow columnists have raised concerns regarding the tram’s flawed densification objectives and the government’s reckless approach to planning policy (Mike Quirk, March 4), disregard of well-established evidence in pursuing this option (Beatrice Bodart-Bailey, January 25), its affordability into the future (Michael Moore, February 28), with annual costs reaching more than a billion dollars by the start of Stage 2B (Richard Johnston, February 26). 

Numerous correspondents with backgrounds in relevant disciplines have likewise made compelling but negative comments on the project. 

Tellingly, we are yet to see, including in the mainstream media, any cogent and objective case for light rail. 

We do acknowledge the regular commentary based on nebulous notions such as “transformational”, “future proofing” or “for the future”, which of course melt away under the harsh light of evidence and reason.

Regrettably, it is quite common for publicly expressed concerns about the light rail project, which are founded on facts, analysis or reason to be dismissed as coming from “haters”. 

Notably such “arguments” invariably come from lobbyists and advocates with a vested interest. It is also surely relevant in any consideration of the justification for light rail that a highly esteemed academic, who initially supported the project and was cited by government, has since withdrawn his support, having become aware of the alternative technologies not just in development but in operation.

A significant and concerning feature of the ACT light rail project is that it reflects a major change in culture and the abandonment of well-established, professional management and administrative practices within the ACT government and notably the ACT public service. 

In seeking to understand the abandonment by the ACT government of all objectivity in the blind pursuit of this project we have concluded that the thinking of the Labor/Green brains trust has been along the following lines:

• If you decide on the procurement method and financing structure of a project years before its scope in a “power-sharing agreement”, then due process and proper financial management are tradeable for retaining that power. 

• If you accept the reasons for the project as stated in the Stage 1 business case, your eyes will glaze over when contemplating “complexity thinking ideas”. 

• If you accept a less than 49 cents return on every dollar of a $2 billion commitment of public money, it is easier to accept wastage of (say) $77 million as a mere learning experience. 

• If you accept – actually plan for – a cost overrun of a third of the base estimate when starting a project, lax discipline in costing and cost overruns become the norm and a gullible, progressive and disconnected middle-class electorate will yawn and vote you back into office. 

• When you sign a $577 million contract without an open tender, the ‘value for money’ and open competition cease to be principles for other procurements. 

The list goes on.

Too long a bow to draw, you say. We could recite the counterarguments from the project advocates, so called independent and objective observers and the Labor faithful. 

After all, this is not the only instance of an uneconomic large project, and not the first time standard financial management and administrative rules and practices have been ignored. There are abundant examples in Australia and across the world, and considerable academic literature focused on such behaviour.

It is, unfortunately, the case that the usual structures and processes of accountability and checks on poor practice have failed in the ACT, thereby rewarding and sustaining it.

The scale of this undertaking, relative to the size of the ACT budget and economy, is very large and rare at the subnational level. The ACT simply does not have the capacity for such an undertaking.

To understand the debilitating effects of the tram project across the spectrum of services, consider the position of health managers and doctors, who had meticulously planned for a significant increase in demand, and a commensurate increase in hospital capacity and staffing, only to be confronted with repeated deferrals in capital investment and cuts to growth funds to accommodate the recurrent cost of the project.

There has been a revolving door of senior managers. There has been a flow of lame and unsubstantiated excuses about complexity and a flood of NSW patients, advice to patients not to turn up at the hospital with symptoms that any clinician would advise not to ignore, and the spin doctoring of data – unacceptable, but understandable.

When more than a thousand public housing tenants living on Northbourne Avenue were evicted, never to be heard of again, many of them with complex needs, and the stock sold to pay for the tram, it was unsurprising that the next program designed by ACT Housing officials and presumably endorsed by Cabinet, was premised on the forced eviction of hundreds of vulnerable, mainly elderly women. 

One assumes that Housing ACT based its decision-making on the example set by the relevant Labor/Green Ministers. 

As an aside we await with interest the decision of the Supreme Court on this latter program of evictions. We have previously written about the rather odd, self-serving explanations provided by ACT Ministers for a raft of nation-worst outcomes. 

Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith, for example, simultaneously blamed an increase in complexity as well as patients with low needs turning up at hospitals. 

Minister Yvette Berry publicly denied that public housing stock was sold off to pay for the tram – despite the existence of an agreement to this effect signed by Chief Minister Andrew Barr. She also chastised housing tenants for standing up for their rights before being forced to abandon the program.

In the same vein, we were stunned when the Federal Minister for Transport, Catherine King, at the sod-turning for stage 2a, dispensed with any need to know the costs, and by implication, its benefits.

The minister admitted that the costs of stage 2b are not known, but that nevertheless, a federal Labor government will make a significant contribution and claimed that such support will be under threat if Labor is not returned to power. 

While Ms King and indeed the Albanese government may have no interest in the business case and cost/benefit analysis for stages 2a or 2b of light rail we can assure her that we Canberrans have a very direct interest in understanding the basis on which our taxes and other charges are being spent. 

We would, therefore, be grateful if either Prime Minister Albanese or Chief Minister Barr would cease treating us with such contempt and release the business case. Assuming that is, that a business case was prepared.

We will expand, in a future article, on the issues we have raised above and on Minister King’s comments.

Jon Stanhope is a former chief minister of the ACT and Dr Khalid Ahmed a former senior ACT Treasury official.