Page 3078 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
should be responsible for paying for the infrastructure that the residents of Canberra in later years are going to use? Quite clearly, that is not the case, Mr Speaker, and that is not what capital works budgets for municipalities or State governments are all about. It is important to remember that. The capital works program is an important part of any government's budget, and some of the programs cut by the minority Labor Government have the potential to eventually cost the economy of the Territory much more in the future.
What we have is an attempt to save money in the short term, forgetting that often such attempts lead to longer-term costs to the community. In particular, Mr Speaker, the proposal by the Alliance to spend money on repairs to some parts of the road system was taken on good advice to avoid long-term problems in the future. Some of the roads that Mrs Grassby is talking about have been down for over 23 years, have exceeded their life well and truly, and in fact need to be replaced. If Mrs Grassby had done her homework she would know that, the longer you leave such roads without repair, the amount it costs to bring them into any sort of suitable condition increases at a very incredible rate.
Mr Duby: Logarithmically.
MR JENSEN: Something like that, Mr Duby. I am not a mathematician; I will defer to your comment on that. The areas proposed for repair have long gone past their normal life. Unfortunately, it will not be the Government opposite that will be responsible for fixing up the mess it is going to leave; it will be governments that will follow. The inquiry by Justice Else-Mitchell on infrastructure soon after self-government clearly showed the cost to the community because of a failure by the Commonwealth Government to ensure that regular maintenance of assets was on their agenda.
Today, Mr Speaker, we heard a debate about the Royal Canberra Hospital. Much of the problem related to the Royal Canberra Hospital would not have occurred if previous Federal governments had taken up their responsibilities to maintain a very important community asset. I see Mr Connolly nodding in agreement with that.
There was a scandalous lack of appreciation of the effect that that was going to have on the future ACT community. It was a legacy left to a self-governing Territory which will not be dissimilar to the legacy left to future governments if this minority Government fails to take its responsibilities in maintaining our assets. That, Mr Speaker, is what capital works is really all about. It was for this reason that the majority of the committee made the recommendation at paragraph 3.12 and that is why I reject the rather simplistic view maintained by Mrs Grassby in her dissenting report and also in her comments today.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .