With construction of Southern Cross Station commencing during 2002 (Partnerships Victoria 2003b: p.15), work was scheduled to be completed by April 2005, at which time, the management of the Station's operations would be handed over to the consortium (Victorian Auditor-General 2007a: p.38). However, delays, cost overruns (Victorian Auditor-General 2007a: p.38) (e.g. the unanticipated costs of providing continuous 24 hour access required by rail operators during the construction phase), as well as contractual disputes (e.g. the threat of being forced to pay millions of dollars in liquidated damages (Das 2005)), all impacted on the attainment of project milestones and ultimately affected the parallel delivery of commuter services. On one occasion this led Wal King, the Chief Executive of Leightons Contractors, to publically state that the company had a subservient "master-slave" relationship with the Government (Tomazin and Myer 2006), alleging the State had breached the 'spirit' of the Partnerships Victoria guidelines and blamed inaction by the Government for delays and increased costs relating to the western section of the project (that were anticipated by Leightons Contractors to exceed $50 million) (Hannan 2004). A public sector spokesperson countered the accusation made by Mr King by denying that the Government had not co-operated with the company and was therefore not responsible for the cost blow-outs, and accused Leighton Contractors of trying to shift the blame (Hannan 2004). However, during mid-2005, the Victorian State Government agreed to forgo potential damages claims in exchange for Civic Nexus Pty Ltd withdrawing its writ against the Government (Das 2005).