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Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Economists line up in the Financial Review to throw rocks at Canberra’s light rail

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CANBERRA’S Capital Metro plans are gaining national attention with the Australian Financial Review recruiting a conga line of economists and public policy experts (click the top link) to cast doubt on the merits of the project.

ANU Crawford School of Public Policy adjunct associate professor Leo Dobes said there was a “disturbing lack of facts on the table” in relation to the costs and benefits of the project even months after the release of the study.

“We just don’t know the assumptions that underpinned many of the figures put out in the public domain and we are thinking of staging a forum at the ANU in a month or so to see what we have learned,” Professor Dobes said.

“We simply don’t have all the data to make judgements.”

Intriguingly Simon Corbell thinks it’s reassuring that he’s based the decision to proceed on no more data than has been made public:

“The public is seeing the same business case that was presented to the ACT cabinet … I don’t know how we could be any more transparent,”

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

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