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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 147 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

The background work has been done. We have had a number of studies in recent years that have looked at the issue of transport and public transport in the ACT. They have looked at light rail. They have looked at buses. They have looked at the rapid transit route. A number of very considered reports have been tabled and put together in the ACT on this issue. They are comprehensive and I do not know that sending this issue to the Planning and Environment Committee is going to produce a good result. What we are asking the Planning and Environment Committee to do, in effect, is to start from scratch once again; to inquire into the whole issue of the parkway - in the context of what? I just do not know that this is an option that we can realistically follow. What our motion is saying is that the work on the transport options for the ACT has been done, and what we need to look at now is how to implement those options. I have been reading report after report and study after study, and it is my view that the Planning and Environment Committee is not in a position to do that work.

Ms McRae says that the problem with the Maunsell workshop is the brief that they have been given by the Government rather than the process of that workshop itself. I have been hearing that the facilitation in that workshop has been very poor; that people who are asking to speak on issues and make their views felt are not being heard. I am hearing that the minutes of people's responses and requests in those workshops are not being recorded. These are very fundamental problems with the whole process of that workshop and that is why we have called for that process to be stopped.

What we need to do is look again, via this Assembly, at the brief that has been given to Maunsell and also at the way that workshop has been operating. I think it is a really fundamental issue here that is being ignored because no-one wants to make a difficult decision. I think this Assembly generally just wants to fob this off to another committee. I believe that our committee is not in a position to do the very comprehensive work that we are asking it to do. I think that work has been done. I think what is required now is a transport strategy for the ACT. Mr Humphries says we have a transport strategy. He says our transport strategy is the one that the previous Labor Government developed; but at the same time he says, and other members have said, that economic circumstances in the ACT have changed. A number of things have changed in the ACT in recent years, yet we are relying on a strategy that is at least two or three years old.

What this Government needs to do is to develop a strategy that is relevant to 1997 and to use that strategy to move forward on all levels. We need to look at what the bigger picture issues are with transport in and out of Gungahlin. It is not as simple as just putting in a road. What we are doing by looking at road options is diverting the real issue, which is that we will never solve the problem in Canberra of the continued uphill battle of getting a public transport system that works, that is viable and that meets people's needs.

We continue to put roads into the ACT - very expensive roads that we cannot afford. I do not know how we can afford a John Dedman Parkway at the cost of $33m or $35m - and that was in 1988 figures, let alone 2001 figures - not to mention the Monash Drive option as well, which the Maunsell study is looking at as an addition to John Dedman Parkway, not as an either/or. The thing that is being looked at is that we have both roads, and the cost of putting both of those roads in is enormous. It is enormous and it is not something that this Assembly or this Government should entertain.

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