Page 3195 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 18 October 2022
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interchange and new light rail stop in Woden. And they can see the work happening in raising London Circuit, right outside our door, as we get on with bringing light rail down to Commonwealth Park and eventually down to Woden. I endorse this part of the budget.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: A couple of points, members. Mr Steel, I am sure you will enjoy checking Hansard again, but it is Mr Assistant Speaker. And Mr Hanson and Mr Parton, please cease interjections. I will warn you.
MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (12.07): I just want to speak briefly. There has been a lot of conversation here today, and I do not need to repeat any of that. But I do welcome the increased staffing that we have seen at Major Projects Canberra in this budget. We have gone from 219 staff last year up to 240 this year. Major Projects Canberra have a big task; they have a lot on their plate. And it is really important that we build their capacity and make sure that we can be delivering all of the major projects on time and to a high quality.
We have heard a lot about Canberra’s light rail already, and I am pleased to hear that aired in here. Canberrans really do deserve a gold standard public transport system. That is absolutely what we have seen in stage 1. The uptake on stage 1 has been just astonishing. It is doing exactly what it is meant to do.
We need to make sure that we are supporting Major Projects Canberra so that they are delivering the next stages quickly, and we need to make sure they have the capacity to deliver multiple large-scale infrastructure projects all at the same time. They work with a lot of other agencies. There is a lot of coordination work and there is a lot of forward planning work that they need to do, as well as the construction work that they are actually doing. So I am pleased to see that they have got some more resources.
Like Mr Parton, I have heard community concern with the pace that we are delivering light rail. I will not labour on that point. That project is really transformative for Canberra. It is part of our compact city design. It is part of the way we are going to reduce urban sprawl. It is part of the way that we are going to reduce congestion and cut emissions. It does so many things at once. It is good to see that we are commencing construction, and it is really important that we make sure we continue building that entire network in a really good and timely way.
It is great to see Major Projects Canberra delivering a lot of these projects, including commencing light rail stage 2 and the Woden bus interchange. It is also really good to see this investment in our public transport infrastructure. That is so important for Canberra. We have put a lot into our roads, and it is really important that we put this effort into our public transport.
There is a lot going on in Canberra at the moment. There is a lot of competing problems that we have to juggle here. We all know that we are in a climate emergency. We are also the fastest-growing state or territory in the country. So all of that means that we have a huge job to do with our infrastructure. I am pleased to see that we are getting some federal support on some of these projects, and I am pleased to see that a lot of these major projects are going ahead. But we have a big job to do and quite a lot of pressure on how well we do it and how fast we do it.
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