West Gate tunnel contractors CPB Contractors and John Holland have walked away from the contract claiming a “force majeure termination event”. It means the contamination was beyond the reasonable expectations and their means to tackle it (estimated around $500 million).

Was it really so? A news article by Clay Lucas of Brisbane TImes points out to the fact that; In the 1465-page West Gate Tunnel project agreement between Transurban and Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas, there are 125 references to “contamination”.

Now, how can CPB Contractors and John Holland now claim “force majeure termination event” when it is all over the project agreement?  Moreover, it is said that they have got the contract by stressing that they were the ones most prepared to tackle the contamination problem.

Contractors now claim that the amount of contaminated soil turned out to be bigger than what they had expected and that since the signing of the contract, the dules for disposing contaminated soil got stricter.

Even if it so, what happened to the fundamental concepts like 'cost of doing business' and 'risk management'? Evidenty, the contractors want to offload all the risk to the Andrews government and the tax payers. I believe the contractors are betting that the Andrews government will not risk abandoning the project and pay for the $500 million. That is greed.

Rush doers, Wrong doers

How about the Andrews government's share in this drama? General perception is, trying to look 'doers' the Labour government have rushed into action before covering all aspects of the project. There have been serious criticisms about the cost/benefit analysis of the project, about the suitability of the project for a good city planning. Equally troubling is mismanagement of the conflict of interest by the Labour government or a possible "collusion" if you like. 

Transurban, the publicly traded company which had been pitching the West Gate project convinced Tim Pallas as early as in 2014, before the Labour winning the elections and when Pallas was a shadow treasurer. And convincing they did. So much so that after Labor won office that year, two of Pallas’ former staff members then working for Transurban helped to convince the Labour government make the agreement. How ethical is this in Australian politics or in any democracy? Whoever can still deny the conflict of interest needs to convince the Australian public. It is a near-impossible task.

Once Labour won the election and Tim Pallas became the Victorian Treasurer, he really embraced the West Gate project. So much so that, he would shrug off the warnings from many state officials, among them no less than State Auditor Andrew Greaves, that this project would not make sense even by the standards set by the Victorian government.

Sad.