Page 3844 - Week 11 - Thursday, 24 November 2022
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There is not a fiscal crisis. We are a triple A rated jurisdiction with prudent debt management. The long-term prognosis for the territory’s economy is strong. Our population growth continues to be nation leading. The territory does need to make infrastructure investments for the long term. We will hit half a million people by 2027. We need to be investing in our transport infrastructure, in our health infrastructure, in our education infrastructure, in our community infrastructure, and the government is doing all of that.
We need to raise revenue in order to fund those infrastructure projects. The government does that through asset sales, through taxation and through grants from the commonwealth. The other element that Ms Lee skirted over in her contribution was to not recognise the significant change in both the nature of commonwealth infrastructure investment in the territory and also its quantum into the future. One of the important elements of the next stages of the territory’s infrastructure planning is that we know confidently that we can go into this phase with the commonwealth as a partner in housing for the first time in a decade.
A significant additional contribution to stage 2A of the light rail project is the commonwealth investing in their own assets in the territory, all of which—
Mr Parton: And roads?
MR BARR: The commonwealth invests in roads, just as the territory does. The commonwealth invests in roads in the territory, just as the territory government does. It is interesting, the absolute obsession on that side to demonise public transport investment. As Ms Clay and a number of other speakers have pointed out, I have never heard the Canberra Liberals ask for a business case or a cost-benefit analysis in relation to any road project, ever.
An interesting example is that the commonwealth and New South Wales governments have invested a billion dollars in the Barton Highway duplication, with a cost-benefit ratio of about 0.25. I hear absolutely nothing about that, absolutely nothing. Apparently, every road project, no matter its cost benefit, is perfect and unquestionable in their minds—any road project in our region or in our territory. Yet there is an absolute obsession in relation to light rail investments. What we see today in Mr Parton’s motion is yet another episode in a sad saga of denial and rejection of investment in public transport.
We have seen this movie before; we have played this game before. You guys will stick to doing what you have done for the past 20 years. The result will be that you will still be sitting where you have been for the past 20 years for the next 20 if you continue with this sort of approach. Nothing has changed. The Liberal Party is still conservative and still anti-public transport. The difference is that this Leader of the Opposition has the biggest glass jaw of anyone in ACT politics. One bit of criticism and we get a tirade of interjections.
Ms Lee: A tirade?
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