The truth about Rebuild NSW

On the receipts side, which is the source of the Rebuilding fund, Treasury presented the privatisation windfall as being $34.071 billion gross, which is happily in excess of the costs, right?

No it isn't. The first tranche, Transgrid, yielded $10 billion gross but $7 billion nett. The second, Ausgrid yielded $16 billion gross but only $6 billion nett. The third, Endeavour, sold for $7.624 billion but only $2.9 billion nett.

$29 billion has to be compared with an actual $15.9 billion, a 50% shortfall, if the Government is to be more truthful than Labor was, even without the millstone of WestConnex.

Further, $20 billion is not in the Rebuilding fund from the lease-out, the number is $15.9 billion.

"CBD to Bankstown" is a misnomer as it is actually "North Shore to Bankstown" with the Tunnel alone said to probably cost $10 billion – making the total of $14 billion for new and reconstructed stations seem low. ("Optimistic" cost assumptions were attacked in the Grattan Institute's "Cost overruns in transport infrastructure" in October 2016.)

Also, on at least one occasion Baird said about $1 billion would come from the Federal Government as a bonus for asset realisation. The Turnbull Government axed that scheme and no reference to an actual payment has been found. (Berejiklian has mentioned a $2 billion payment which is likely to be the Federal subsidy for WestConnex which is not relevant here.)

Foregone revenue has been said to be about $1.5 billion per year which amounts to an NPV of $10.54 billion over 10 years at 7%. This is a "cost" from the funding stream that has to be booked to the funding purpose – the Metros etc.

It is known that the Metros will damage the financial and operational viability of the Bradfield rail system and the institutions and communities that reply on them. Such costs have not been included in the Business Cases and will be of material significance, possibly to a critical level.

Berejiklian's Strategy director wrote an adverse story in The Australian on 11 February '16, that ACIL Allen had disproven Baird's claims that the privatisation would deliver $300 billion over 20 years in increased State productivity – the increase in congestion and discrepancies with population and employment projections would reduce travel time claimed benefits ("nonsense on stilts").

Three conclusions seem to be reasonable in this context:

• First, Berejiklian’s Government is not more honest than Labor, including misstating the total funds available and making false claims of lease-out proceeds against even a small sample of intents.  The shortfalls of 50% and 60% and in regional allocations are serious indicators of ongoing “stench” instead of competency
• Second, Berejiklian’s subsequent insistence on a West Metro (at the cost of losing the GOOGLE icon at White Bay over frustration) at a conservative $10 billion and 10 years’ delay while forsaking a cheaper and faster way to deliver a “Glebe Island-White Bay tech precinct to rival London’s Tech City, New York’s Roosevelt Island and even California’s Silicon Valley”, is in the same class as Carr’s and après-Carr reckless promises, recycled press releases and broken credibility;  and
• Third, the failure to meet accepted standards of project assessment and the exclusion of consequential damage to the Bradfield heritage rail system means that Restart’s metro and associated tunnel actual or theoretical funds should not be expended until it is known what the contingent liability from the Bradfield degradation will be.  This is a “Catch-22” that is consequential to ideology-based decisionmaking that is so decried by PM Turnbull.  The risk is real, that the rare and precious proceeds of the lease-out of poles-n-wires will be wasted, added to the weird damage to the Bradfield system and its stakeholders.

Taking this sourcing overview with the parallel critiques of poor outcomes from the Metro’s operational and housing aspects, of misleading business cases, and of iA mistakes, produces the conclusion that that those politicians, officials, agencies, councils, lobbies and media who accepted the metro mantas had learnt little or nothing over some 20 years of controversial transport and land use non-planning.  The Metros are soaking up funds that could be going to more worthwhile systemic improvements such as using the Main West line to run fast trains and avoid a 10-year and $10+ billion West Metro!