Thursday, 6 February 2025

Suburban Rail Loop

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:21): (792) My question is to the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop. The SRL risk register from 2020 has been released by VCAT. In contract law the deliberate withholding of material risk may undermine the enforceability of the contract at best, and it may in fact be an illegal act by the directors at worst. It is of deep concern that the government has sought to keep the risk register secret. In any democracy suppression of information as a risk mitigation strategy is not only corrupt practice, it is quite possibly illegal, and it should be treated very seriously. Is it the government’s policy to suppress details of material risks to commercial partners and the public?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:22): There are so many questions in the contribution that you have just made, Mr Welch. As I hope you are aware, if you are interested in financial management and the statute that applies to regulate it, the principles of sound financial management create obligations under any public sector agency, which includes the SRLA, to provide a framework for risk management. There is also an entire section, as I indicated in my response to Mr Mulholland’s question – perhaps Mr Davis, I do not know; the same person obviously wrote all of them – that talks about risks, contingencies and valuation judgements.

Mr Welch, what I would encourage you to do is perhaps refresh your understanding of the interaction between common law and statute, and statute, which is the framework by which sound financial principles are applied under the Financial Management Act, is very different to the references that you have made to contract. When we are talking about contract, we are also talking about the obligation that government has to make sure that projects are managed, developed and delivered in accordance with the principles that apply under the acts that regulate their own financial principles and parameters. Mr Welch, if you are saying that in fact a risk management framework should not be developed and that a register should not be updated from time to time; Mr Welch, if you are saying that a document from 2020, which was overtaken by numerous –

Richard Welch: On a point of order, President, the minister is rephrasing my question for me. That was not the question. The question was regarding the disclosure of material risk as a legal and moral requirement.

The PRESIDENT: I think the minister was being relevant to the question in rejecting the premise.

Harriet SHING: It is unfortunate that Mr Welch then again provided a question that has given me such fertile ground to talk about the interaction between common law and statute. The fact that he now appears to have gone to equity as part of another canon within legal interpretation perhaps shows that you are scrambling around for discussions around how sound financial principles and management apply. Mr Welch, if you are saying that there should not be a process that evolves over time to understand risk and benefit, if you are saying that you do not understand the distinction between what a third, a third, a third looks like on value capture, on asset management, on land use and on planning processes for Australia’s largest infrastructure project, then Mr Welch, what I would suggest that you do is look to a document from 2020, see how that has been superseded, including by an investment and business case tabled and produced on 19 August 2021 that clearly outlines the basis upon which this multidecade project will be delivered and needs to be delivered and the fact that as it is done in stages the risk assessment will vary over time, as it should. If you think that being stuck back in 1929 informs a case for the city loop that opened in 1985, then heaven help us if you are in charge of managing a project like this.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:25): I do not think that answers the question in any way or form. But the supplementary is: have the mitigation measures identified and approved under the SRL risk register been implemented?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:26): Again, I am going to take issue with one word in that question: ‘the’ risk register.

David Davis interjected.

Harriet SHING: Mr Davis, you have just interjected there. You are talking about a document from 2020, right, and you are implying that that is a static document.

Wendy Lovell interjected.

Harriet SHING: All right. So, Ms Lovell, I am going to take you up on that interjection. You have just said the risk register is updated. Well, bingo. At least somebody on that side of the chamber understands that the nature of a project of this magnitude occurs in consultation and discussion on funding envelopes. Again, $14 billion is there and allocated for the purpose of being able to deliver SRL East. Come and see the sites. Come and see what it is that we are doing, and you will be able to see the magnitude of the project we are talking about. That is why when we look at sound financial management it is a process that evolves over time. To do anything other than that would be deeply irresponsible. I look forward to seeing how you would develop as you go.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:27): I move:

That the minister’s answer be taken into account on the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to.