Greens spokesperson for WestConnex Jenny Leong has called on Premier Mike Baird to immediately clarify the authorship of the WestConnex Updated Strategic Business Case, to allay serious concerns that the lack of attribution is so that the author can avoid liability or public scrutiny if the content is found to be flawed.
“Before we have even begun a detailed assessment of the 320 page, heavily redacted, WestConnex Updated Strategic Business Case, it’s clear that there is a glaring omission: there is NO author.”
“Unlike the 2013 WestConnex Business Case Executive Summary, which was attributed to the Sydney Motorway Project Office, this latest Business Case is not attributed to any individual, organisation or department.
“Given the only identifiable marker on the document is a generic logo - “NSW Making it Happen” – it falls to the Premier to clarify who in the NSW Government is responsible.
“There is no author, no responsible department, no mention of a consultancy firm who produced the report, nor reference to the Sydney Motorway Corporation.
“It’s unclear who conducted the studies and who undertook the analysis. Without this information this document has no credibility at all.
“AECOM, a company heavily involved in the WestConnex project, recently had to pay $280 million dollars after the publication of highly inaccurate traffic modelling, in what has been described by the Wall Street Journal as ‘one of the largest settlements related to misleading and deceptive conduct in Australian corporate history’.
“Is this failure to name a party responsible for the business case an attempt to keep those involved removed from potential risk due to over inflated benefits or under inflated costs?
“AECOM’s erroneous forecasting on that Brisbane toll road cost the community over a billion dollars. It’s more than reasonable that we demand details of who authored this business case – and who will take responsibility for any inaccuracies.
