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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 137 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

There is a reason why I do not want work to just stop. Ms Horodny's motion proposes that all work stop. That gives the impression that the Maunsell consultancy is put on ice, that we go ahead with other things and then Maunsell is reactivated. I do not think that is appropriate, because the study has begun. These people have been contracted to do a particular job. The fact that the job may have flaws in it is not the problem of the current consultant or the work that they are undertaking. It is the problem of the brief that the Government has given them.

As I have said publicly, I believe that thus far the study has yielded some very useful information. Not only has it shown the measure of public discontent, but also it has pointed out the alternatives. Already, through the process of consultancy and study, Maunsell has been able to find the alternatives that people are concerned about, the detail that has not been covered and the types of issues that will have to be dealt with before any road can proceed anywhere. So I am not here to suggest that the current study is in any way one to be supported or is wonderful itself; it is purely a means to an end and, as far as I see it, the end is that we will get some information from that.

How the Minister acts on that will be the issue of most vital concern to everyone. That is why it is at that point that I wish the Minister and the Government to respond to that report and then, with that information, a wide-ranging inquiry can begin so that the Assembly can make further decisions on the basis of that inquiry. To a certain extent, we are saying that we believe that the Government has failed, and I guess any government could, in terms of the nature of the terms of reference that were given, the options that were presented and the nature of the consultancy that was undertaken. As I have said before, it has been through that process that we have discovered what those omissions are.

Mr Humphries today, in his speech, actually presented some of the background, some of the history, some of the lead-up and some of the complexity of this issue. But, as it has hit the press and as it has hit the general public and as it has been debated in public meetings and consultation processes, workshops and around the traps, none of that embedding of history has been there; none of that greater detail has informed the debate. So conspiracy theories have run rife, and no acknowledgment has been made of the requests of previous inquiries, of the complexity of the issues that are before people and of the reasons why the Minister has chosen seemingly to ignore some of the previous recommendations. In that context it is little wonder that people are saying, "Stop everything; we do not want to know about this".

I am not suggesting that, even with all the details in front of us, everyone is going to be happy; but the absence of that historical framework, the absence of the acknowledgment of previous studies, the absence of explanation as to why certain things have not been done, makes it a lot harder to come, through this current consultancy, to any good and logical conclusions about the best interests of transport, not only for this Gungahlin link but also for the wider transport needs of Canberra, which have, of course, already been mentioned in debate.

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