Once more, the next ACT election will be fought over light rail, as the last three elections were. The Canberra Liberals today made their long-awaited announcement that they cannot support light rail to Woden.

Light rail to Woden is one of the ACT Government’s most cherished ambitions. Part of a mass transit system linking north and south – “the biggest infrastructure project in the history of the city”, in transport minister Chris Steel’s words – the government believes it is necessary to avoid congestion as the population grows to half a million by the end of the decade, and to 620,000 by 2046. They declare that they have a mandate for it; that it has wide popular backing; and that they have won several elections over the issue since 2016. The Liberals’ rejection of it, Mr Steel said, amounts to a betrayal of southsiders, undermining years of work and wasting millions of dollars.

But the Liberals argue that the numbers do not add up. By their reckoning, the “Labor-Greens white elephant” will cost more than $3 billion. That is Civic to Woden alone; they estimate the entire project will cost $14 billion, more than three times the entire ACT budget when the project began a decade ago. That money could be better spent on vital services like health or housing or education, the Liberals argue. Services, they claim, from which the government has ripped money to pay for their pet project. Meanwhile, they say, the government cannot afford to pay for the light rail, and is heading into debt.

“Do Canberrans want to spend north of $3 billion on one tram, or do they want to see money reinvested in our health, education, community safety, public housing, and infrastructure that is actually going to deliver the best economic and social benefits for all Canberrans?” party leader Elizabeth Lee MLA asked this morning.

“That is the choice that Canberrans will see in the lead-up to 2024.”

While the Liberals have yet to release their own transport policy, it is expected to include alternative forms of public transport, like electric buses.

“They are a cleaner, cheaper, and more versatile option,” Ms Lee said. “We would be mad not to look at that in great detail.”

Chief Minister Andrew Barr dismissed the Liberals’ position as “negative opposition for opposition’s sake”.

“To rule out light rail … will severely limit our city’s capacity to meet our future population growth,” Mr Barr said.

Liberals: Light rail will cost more than $3 billion

According to the Liberals’ figures, stage 2A (Civic to Commonwealth Park) will cost $343 million, and stage 2B (Commonwealth Park to Woden) will cost $2.7 billion – the equivalent of building five hospitals or 20 new schools, Ms Lee said. That comprises:

• Light rail route 2B: one major bridge, three medium-sized bridges, Lake Burley Griffin, State Circle, Hopetoun Circuit, Yarralumla Creek, Yamba Drive (a flood plain, crossing which will need a bridge): $325 million
• Construction costs: $1.3 billion
• Extensive changes to roads: $185 million
• 11 or more new light rail vehicles: $66 million
• All other associated costs of works, roads, utility changes: $200 million
• TOTAL (including 30 per cent inflation rate variance): $2.7 billion

The $3.04 billion figure was obtained by running the “limited” information the government has made publicly available past consultants and engineers, Mark Parton MLA, shadow minister for transport, stated.

Some pundits, such as Dr Khalid Ahmed, former head of policy co-ordination and development at the ACT Treasury, consider those figures “quite conservative”, Mr Parton said. The estimate does not include:

• Early enabling works: $150 million
• Operating costs to get Canberra Metro Operations (CMET) to run the Woden leg: potentially another $40 million per annum for 20 years, plus interest
• Costs to change the bus network
• Costs of Major Projects Canberra and contractors to plan and deliver light rail grids over the next decade

The government has neither confirmed nor denied that figure. Mr Parton has drawn his own conclusions.

“Since I laid our figures on the table, there’s been silence from the government, absolute silence,” Mr Parton said. “I think Canberrans should expect that this project in its entirety will cost north of $3 billion.”

But in Ms Lee’s opinion, the government has “refused to be upfront and to be transparent with the public”. The Liberals have repeatedly asked them to answer two questions: “How much will stage two cost, and when will it get to Woden?”

• Liberals: ACT Government keeps public in dark about light rail (24 November)
• Greens and Liberals ask when ACT light rail will be built (25 August)

Mr Steel said route 2A would take four years to construct. He said the government had shown an “unparalleled level of transparency”, and will continue to do so in releasing the business cases and contracts for the projects. The government has signed contracts to raise London Circuit, and modify depots for new vehicles. Next year, the government will finalise the procurement processes to build the track and stations.

• Light rail – London Circuit construction work begins (10 October)
• London Circuit closing – expect years of traffic disruption (22 November)

The ACT Government does not want to reveal the cost, in case it prejudices business negotiations, ministers said last week. “What we’re not doing is play the rule in, rule out games, or trying to condition the market to bid even higher for projects,” Mr Barr said today. He promised that the information would be made available as the project came close to procurement.

After that, Mr Steel said, the government would seek the Federal Government’s approval for 2B, then begin procurement to design and construct the project.

The project has the Federal Government’s support, Mr Barr said. The area best served by light rail 2A will be the Parliamentary Triangle, where more than 50,000 people (one in five jobs) and major national tourist attractions are located. The Commonwealth also announced a billion-dollar investment in a national security precinct, which will be home to another 5,000 staff; the location was chosen because of its proximity to the next stage of light rail, Mr Barr said.

Can the government afford it?

The Canberra Liberals claim that the government cannot afford light rail, and is hurting many Canberrans in trying to do so.

According to the Liberals, Mr Barr, as Treasurer, had delivered deficit after deficit, despite promising to return to surplus every year; net debt will be almost $15 billion in debt in the forward estimates; and Canberrans will pay half a billion dollars on interest repayments alone each year by 2024–25. To pay for light rail, Ms Lee said, the government has “poured millions and millions out of health, education, public housing, community safety, and road upgrades”.

• Liberals claim ACT only jurisdiction without surplus (9 August)
• Canberra Liberals call for ‘warts and all’ ACT budget audit (2 August)

The Liberals claim the government cut real expenditure on health per person by 3.6 per cent between 2015–16 and 2018–19, and reduced available beds by 150 beds against the 2011 Capital Asset Plan between 2015–16 and 2020–21. Moreover, Canberra has the worst hospital waiting times, according to the Australian Medical Association’s 2021 Report Card.

In education, the Liberals allege, the government decreased real funding for teachers by 3.3 per cent over the last decade, and education standards have fallen: 23 schools closed permanently, while others have been shut because of bullying, violence, and hazardous materials.

The Liberals claim the government diverted $515 million from public housing, and $86 million of federal funding allocated to road upgrades, to pay for the tram.

• Funding off the rails? Liberals say public housing financed light rail (7 September)
• Road spending reallocated to light rail stage 2A (2 November)

Community safety has also suffered, according to the Liberals; they say the ACT has the smallest police force per capita in the nation’s history.

• No bill for the Old Bill: Liberal motion comes a-copper (10 February)

“Canberrans have started to see the real impacts of the decisions that were made by this Labor-Greens government many years ago, and are now starting to wake up to what their priorities are,” Ms Lee said.

“This is about opportunity cost more than anything else,” Mr Parton said. “The fact of the matter is: if you spend $3 billion dollars on this project, that’s $3 billion that you can’t spend on health, policing, housing, [or] basic services. We’re all already feeling that… We don’t have endless buckets of money. We are spiralling deeper into debt.”

Mr Barr rejected the Liberals’ assertion that the government had sacrificed services to the tram. The government invested a third of its budget in health, and a quarter in education, he stated.

“Transport is a relatively small share of the total in the Territory budget, and light rail an even smaller share of that transport allocation,” Mr Barr said.

Moreover, Mr Barr continued, in his view, the Liberals had shown they were incapable of managing large projects simultaneously and investing in health, education, transport, housing, and community services.

“That’s what an experienced and mature government does,” Mr Barr said. “The announcement from the opposition reflects that they largely think this is just too hard.”

Government will scrap bus routes and ruin Adelaide Avenue, Liberals claim

The Liberals are also concerned that Adelaide Avenue – green, open spaces at the moment – will be covered in apartment blocks.

“There is no possible way to build Stage 2 without putting high-rises on every available inch of Adelaide Avenue – filled with the same developments now lining Northbourne Avenue,” Ms Lee said.

Jeremy Hanson, deputy leader of the Canberra Liberals, and Liberal MLA for Murrumbidgee, says the people in his electorate do not want Adelaide Avenue turned into another Northbourne Avenue. In fact, according to him, many do not want light rail.

“In this electorate where the tram’s coming, there’s a great resistance to the tram,” Mr Hanson said. “People don’t want it. My sense is that this view has firmed up since 2016.”

In the 2016 ACT election, he notes, more people in both Murrumbidgee and Brindabella voted for the Liberals (42.8 per cent; 41.9 per cent) than for Labor (34.5 per cent; 33.6 per cent).

What people in those electorates do want, the Liberals say, is a bus route that works – and they fear that the government will take that away.

Public transport advocates, Ms Lee said, are concerned that should stage 2B of light rail continue to Woden, direct bus routes – 15 minutes from Woden to Civic – will be cut, and commuters will be forced onto light rail – which will take almost double the time.

Last week, Mr Parton introduced a motion for the government to maintain and not cancel bus routes from suburbs south of Lake Burley Griffin to Civic when the Woden tram commences, and that commuters will not be forced onto the tram; and that public transport travel time will not increase. The government refused his motion – according to Mr Parton, because nobody would catch the tram if the current bus route still operated.

“If no-one would take the $3 billion option, why are we doing it?” Mr Parton asked.

• Canberra Liberals want government to protect buses (30 November)

Mr Barr said that Ms Lee’s analysis assumed there would be no increase in traffic congestion between now and the time of completion, or that the city’s population would not grow. The government’s position is that light rail will ease traffic congestion.

Mr Steel also dismissed the plusses of buses. “Buses – trackless buses, gadget buses – don’t deliver the same public transport or city-shaping benefits for public transport and our city that we’ve already seen in Stage One,” he said.

Are light rail’s benefits exaggerated?

But external reports – and some published by the ACT public service – question the government’s assumptions of the benefits of light rail, the Liberals say.

In 2013, then-Chief Minister Katy Gallagher’s own directorate argued that it was difficult to frame light rail purely as a transport project, given bus rapid transit was a lower cost alternative, the Canberra Times reported; the directorate recommended that it be framed as an integrated land use, transport, and planning policy project.

In 2016, the Grattan Institute stated that Canberra light rail “simply does not meet the needs of the community”; bus rapid transit would deliver similar benefits, at less than half the cost. “The project only breaks even because land-use benefits and wider economic impacts from light rail account for almost three-fifths of the projected benefits.”

In 2018, Infrastructure Australia found the government’s arguments for light rail instead of buses was wanting, and that congestion on Northbourne Avenue – one of the justifications for the project – was not as significant as urban roads in other cities, the Canberra Times again reported.

Last year, the ACT Auditor-General reviewed the government’s business case and economic analysis for light rail stage 2A, and found that capital costs would be much higher than the government estimated, and that many benefits claimed depended on other projects. The Auditor-General instructed the government to redo the business case; the government refused.

• 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)

Liberals will reveal transport policy

The Liberals will release their comprehensive transport policy in the lead-up to the election; they say it will focus on real public transport outcomes that will benefit the entire community: fast, reliable, and environmentally friendly.

“We will electrify the bus network much quicker than [the government] will,” Mr Parton said. “Why? If indeed we are elected, we won’t be spending $3 billion dollars on this project…

“I’ve visited a number of jurisdictions – I’ve been to Brisbane, I’ve ridden on the Brisbane Metro; I’ve been to Perth and had a look at the Stirling trackless train project.

“When our transport policy is released, it will be much more forward thinking, much more genuinely 21^st century, and it will have lesser emissions than Labor and the Greens.”

The next election will show whether they’re on the right track.