Page 2867 - Week 10 - Thursday, 7 October 2021
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Our government welcomes accountability and transparency for this important project. We recognise that Canberrans have a very real and reasonable interest in how we are delivering light rail to Woden and we are happy to shed more light on this as we go forward.
As such, we will be supporting this motion with the appropriate amendments. The amendments that I am putting forward are straightforward. They remove some of the unnecessary, emotive and inflammatory language that does not reflect the Auditor-General’s comments. These drafting changes are uncontroversial and there should not be any issues for anyone in the chamber, provided that they support this project in the first place.
Instead of establishing another select committee, I am proposing that the issues identified within the motion are considered by the existing committee that has already been established for this very purpose, which is the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, the PAC. I appreciate that Mr Parton is not the Liberal representative on this committee. However, he remains the Liberal representative on the Standing Committee on Planning, Transport and City Services. This committee also has oversight of the project—it is a budget-funded project—and I am sure that he will be asking questions on it in future estimates and annual report hearings as well and at other opportunities. I am sure that, between these two committees and the public engagement the ACT government will be undertaking and other transparency mechanisms, like estimates, there will be plenty of opportunity for scrutiny of the light rail project coming to Woden.
The next stage of the light rail project is going to come to Woden. It is going ahead. It is not a proposal, as Mr Parton has put it in the motion; it is a project. It has actually started. Enabling works actually began two weeks ago with the relocation of utilities in preparation for the raising of London Circuit. How much longer are the Canberra Liberals going to try and undermine and attack this important project for the future of our city that will benefit us for decades to come? Will it be when the trucks are tipping out thousands of tonnes of fill to raise London Circuit? Will they still be trying to stop it then? Will they try and stop it when we are laying tracks on Commonwealth Avenue? Will they still be arguing about the BCR number on the project when we are laying tracks? Light rail is going ahead and the conversation needs to move forward to focus on how the project will be delivered, not on a business case from several years ago that is clearly outdated.
We welcome the opposition’s questions, their input and their role in this place in supporting transparency. That is the importance of this parliament. There is a constructive role that the opposition can play in this project, but at the moment, Mr Parton, it does not look like this. From the very beginning of your speech, you were incredibly defensive around the opposition’s role in the past. There is a reason for that.
Before stage 1 of the project, which you opposed at several elections, Mr Coe went around on his tour of fear around the community, visiting community councils, handing around numbers from this 2014 business case for light rail, to suggest that there would not be benefits from that project. And he did not support light rail.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video