JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED continue to expose the inconsistencies, questionable assumptions and conceptual flaws of the embarrassing light rail business cases.
Jon Stanhope
Jon Stanhope was Chief Minister from 2001 to 2011 and represented Ginninderra for the Labor Party from 1998. He is the only Chief Minister to have governed with a majority in the Assembly.
"In a last-ditch attempt to ensure residents be kept in the dark about the cost of light rail, Barr claimed executive privilege over the relevant documents." JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED track the hard politics to discover the tram costs.
JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED masterfully reveal the shocking reality of clinical priorities in ACT public hospitals being set by bureaucrats, not doctors, looking to save $27 million from the hospital budget.
As our faltering health system wobbles on in deep distress, under poor and inept management, JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED prescribe a look at the acclaimed Oregon Plan, which held legislators directly accountable when things went wrong.
Using the concept of 'mega projects', JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED wonder aloud why millions of taxpayers dollars are being promised to uncosted light rail and who, ultimately, stands to benefit.
" Norfolk Island has, to Australia’s enduring shame, joined Christmas Island and the Cocos Keeling Islands as non-self-governing territories, or in other words, as colonies," writes columnist JON STANHOPE.
"The Commonwealth's largesse is a bad deal in that it foists a project on the ACT that we, quite clearly, cannot afford." JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED reveal how the federal government is pork barreling the tram. But why?
"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." JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED revisit the political miseries of light rail.
"With an operating deficit of $1 billion and net debt tracking to $12 billion, it's reasonable to ask whether the woeful state of the ACT budget may justifiably be attributed to this single project," write JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED.
"Andrew Barr can hardly blame the public service for the budgetary and policy choices he, along with his coalition partners, have made over more than a decade." JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED despair at the state of the ACT.
'Net debt has reached $9.044 billion. That is more than $19,000 for every Canberran – young and old, working or not, and even children.' JON STANHOPE and KHALID AHMED believe another credit downgrade for the ACT is highly likely.
JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED use three ABS graphs to draw a stark picture of the ACT's nation-leading incarceration of indigenous people.
