Page 2373 - Week 08 - Thursday, 5 August 2021
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to use the already congested Monaro Highway at the same time as you will start disruptive works on the same road?
MR STEEL: We are getting on with building major infrastructure projects that are needed to meet the needs of our growing city, and we are getting on with works, of course, on light rail very soon but also getting on with the necessary infrastructure projects on major arterial routes like the Monaro Highway, like William Hovell Drive. We are also building a hospital in Woden. We are building a new interchange and bus depot in Woden, a new CIT campus. There is a huge amount of private development occurring right across the city, and it is going to be a disruptive period.
That is why we are doing the preparations planning necessary so that we can provide, closer to the time, advice to Canberrans about what routes they might want to take, to minimise the extent of that disruption. We have not provided that advice yet. We will be doing that close to the time. It will depend on where each of the infrastructure projects is up to in its program, and that may differ, often on a daily basis around which roads are closed and so forth.
We are getting on with that work, and it would be extraordinary if it was the position of the opposition Liberal Party that we should delay and not build these projects. We are getting on with the job—
Mrs Jones: On a point of order, the minister is both debating and still has not answered the question—which goes to relevance as well as debating—the question being: why is he telling them to use the Monaro Highway when it will be congested at the same time?
MADAM SPEAKER: I think he has covered his response to that.
Mrs Jones: He certainly has not.
MADAM SPEAKER: There is no need for a chat back, Mrs Jones.
MRS JONES: A supplementary?
MADAM SPEAKER: Indeed?
MRS JONES: Minister, will works on the Monaro Highway be taking place at the same time as the upgrades to stage 2A?
MR STEEL: Yes. We will be getting on with making sure that the Monaro Highway is safer, and we will reduce travel times on that important connection not only for Tuggeranong residents but for the whole of the region, including Jerrabomberra, south Tralee, Queanbeyan—our major freight route to the southern part of New South Wales. We are getting on with that work and we are going to get on with all the other infrastructure projects that we have committed to, because that is what our Labor and Greens government does.
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