Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee yesterday called on the ACT Government not to proceed with stage 2B of light rail to Woden.

The government, unsurprisingly, vetoed Ms Lee’s motion, dismissing the Liberals’ concerns as reactionary.

The Liberals announced last year that they could not support the project. They allege that the ACT Government cannot afford to pay for the light rail, is heading into debt, and has diverted millions of taxpayer funds from essential services – health, education, policing, housing, and city maintenance – to pay for it, as this month’s Productivity Commission’s Reports on Government Services (ROGS) show.

• Light rail has gone off the rails, Canberra Liberals say (5 December 2022)
• Canberra Liberals will call on government to stop light rail (7 February)

“It has become increasingly clear … that despite the rhetoric, despite the spin from Labor and the Greens, Canberrans are paying a steep price for this government’s deal to proceed with the tram at all costs,” Ms Lee said.

The ROGS, she noted, show that the ACT has Australia’s longest hospital emergency wait times, highest rates of long-term homelessness, smallest police force and lowest funding for police per capita, and highest rate of Indigenous incarceration. There are fewer public housing dwellings than a decade ago; more than 3,000 vulnerable people wait years for a roof over their heads. Cuts by the ACT Government in education funding over the past decade resulted in a teacher shortage crisis, violence and bullying in schools, and toxic and hazardous materials in classrooms. City maintenance is neglected: grass is not mown, footpath cracks are not fixed, and the roads are littered with potholes.

“All of these issues … are the direct result of deliberate choices, deliberate decisions made by [Chief Minister Andrew] Barr and [Greens leader Shane] Rattenbury to cement their political alliance that has seen devastating results for some of the most vulnerable members of our community,” Ms Lee said.

The Liberals allege that at the 2012 election, Mr Rattenbury supported Labor to form government in exchange for light rail.

• ACT has longest ED waiting times in country: ROGS (6 February)
• ROGS: Indigenous overrepresentation in ACT justice system worsening (3 February)
• ROGS: ACT police funding and numbers lowest in Australia (1 February)
• Homelessness rises in ACT while social housing dwindles (27 January)

The ACT Government, claimed Ms Lee, refused or failed to disclose the total cost or delivery date for stage two – but conservative estimates put the price tag of tram Stage 2 at more than $3 billion, with a delivery date beyond 2034. They believe the entire project will cost $14 billion – more than three times the entire ACT budget when the project began a decade ago.

Mark Parton MLA, shadow minister for transport, warned that Canberrans and their children would pay for light rail for the rest of their lives.

The ACT Auditor-General’s Report (2021), Ms Lee noted, told the government to revise their business plan for Stage 2A; the government refused to do so last year, and, she said, they cannot guarantee that the same methodological flaws are not present in the business case for Stage 2B.

• Auditor-General: Light rail 2A will cost more than government claims (24 September 2021)
• Light rail stage 2A business case will not be revised (8 June 2022)

More cost effective and sustainable public transport options (e.g., electric buses) have been delivered in other cities since stage one of the tram (Civic to Gungahlin) was completed, the Liberals say. (The opposition has yet to reveal its transport policy.)

“How much more neglect can our hospitals, our schools, our police force and those on public housing waiting lists take?” Ms Lee said. “This government’s steadfast refusal to publicly release the business case for stage two of the tram only confirms what we are all saying and thinking: they cannot or will not give us accurate information on how much it will cost and when it will be delivered because they know it does not stack up. It is not feasible, and it’s a policy that is not based on good public transport outcomes.

“They cannot and will not give us the information because despite the opaqueness of their budget, there are more millions of taxpayer funds that will inevitably be taken from essential government services in health, education, community safety, housing, and basic municipal services, so that Mr Barr and Mr Rattenbury can continue to hold onto their political power at all costs.”

ACT Government response

Chris Steel, ACT Minister for Transport and City Services, did not engage with the Liberals’ argument that the government was sacrificing essential services to pay for light rail; instead, he attributed their opposition to conservatism, and claimed they had given up on light rail (or any mass transit system) because it was “too hard”.

“It’s disappointing that our long-term vision for transport continues to be opposed by the small thinking conservatives in the Canberra Liberals …

“The Liberals have no plan for public transport other than to oppose it. They criticise how long it will take us to build this important complex infrastructure for our growing city, but they would never build it, ever.”

Mr Steel denied that the government refused to disclose the cost for Stage 2. It had, he said, committed to releasing business cases and contracts for future stages of light rail, most recently in the November sitting.

Light rail, Mr Steel argued, was “crucial infrastructure” for the fastest-growing jurisdiction in Australia. Canberra’s population is expected to reach 500,000 people as early as 2027, he said, and to 620,000 by 2046.

“With more people living and working in Canberra, it is vital that the Government finds new ways to efficiently move our larger population around quickly, easily, and sustainably to avoid the same problems of congestion that other cities face,” Mr Steel said.

Extending light rail to the Southside will create a centre mass-transit spine from Gungahlin to Woden, he said.

“This means that all Canberrans will be able to travel to key destinations, including employment centres, north to south, along the line in a single trip.”

Light rail will be integrated with rapid and local bus services serving the suburbs, and the rail line will eventually be extended to other town centres and destinations.

Unlike buses, which are impacted by traffic congestion and disruption, light rail operates on its own track, has priority at intersections, and does not impact adjacent road traffic, Mr Steel said.

Light rail is more reliable than buses, he argued: light rail passenger services were 99.9 per cent available, according to the Transport and City Services’ 2021–22 Annual Report.

“Electric buses could never achieve that level of availability and reliability when they are so easily impacted by road traffic and congestion,” Mr Steel said.

Light rail can carry more passengers than buses, he argued: the vehicles are designed to hold up to 276 passengers – four times the number of passengers on a standard bus, and three times the capacity of articulated buses. Their capacity can be increased by half through modular extensions and modifications to stops.

Canberra, he noted, is the best city in Australia for access to transport, according to the Australia State of the Environment 2021: Urban report: 65 per cent of dwellings are situated within 400 metres of public transport with a reasonable service.

Mr Steel said Stage 1 of light rail had exceeded expectations: more people used public transport compared to bus routes, and there was urban regeneration along the corridor, including more housing.

The government is transitioning the bus fleet to zero-emissions vehicles; more than 100 electric buses will arrive over the coming years, and major works will expand grid capacity to support hundreds more, he said.

• New bus smell as first of ACT’s zero-emissions fleet hits the road (28 January)
• 12 km of cables to charge Canberra’s new electric buses (31 January)

“The [Liberals] are proposing electric buses, but we have already committed to transitioning to a zero-emissions bus fleet,” Mr Steel said. “So in reality, their ‘vision’ for Canberra’s public transport network is to do nothing.”