Page 1425 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 26 September 1989
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The trouble is that the road the Minister is referring to and the road to be funded this year are not the same road. The committee was provided with more detailed information which indicated that additional funds, possibly up to $3m, will be required to complete the construction of the road. The estimated cost described in the budget is for a road which at this stage does not connect to Tharwa Drive, and it is uncertain that the sale of the remaining stages of Gordon will meet the cost of the additional construction. The road described in the budget documents and referred to by the Deputy Chief Minister is shown to cost $2m. It is the committee's view that the cost of the road is more likely to be in the order of $5m.
There are other items which the committee could raise if time allowed. However, I will refer to just one more, namely, the construction of a fire station at Greenway. A number of members were concerned that this station was given a higher priority than the station to serve inner South Canberra. It is the committee's understanding that the fire cover standard for the ACT is an eight-minute response time. The Administration advised that at present 11,500 people in Yarralumla and adjacent suburbs are outside the eight-minute time, whilst in the Greenway area the figure is 24,500.
The committee concedes that, on these figures, it is obvious that the Greenway fire station must have a high priority. The committee notes, however, that property and lives in Yarralumla and adjacent suburbs are placed at a potentially higher risk than other areas of the ACT because they are outside the fire service's minimum response standards.
I believe that the committee's inquiry was worth while. It was necessarily restricted, however, because of the time available to it. There were many items which the committee did not examine at all and others which the committee examined in very little detail. We have recommended in our report that in future the initial statement relating to the new capital works program be made available to the committee in May each year.
The committee emphasises in its report that it was unable to undertake the detailed examination of major works similar to State and Commonwealth public works committees. We have recommended that the Government, in consultation with the committee, develop procedures to enable detailed examination of particular capital works.
Finally, I draw the attention of the Assembly to the claim at page 11 of the Chief Minister's published budget speech, that no major changes were recommended to the program by my committee. This is clearly inaccurate. Our report raised a number of queries affecting large items, such as the wisdom of proceeding with the Theodore Primary School, a $4.7m allocation and the fire station issue I have just
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