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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 851 ..

MR HIRD: These are questions that the three governments will make up their minds about. If the three governments are smart they will leave Mr Berry out because he is always wrong. Whichever one he picks will be the wrong one.

Mr Berry: Both directions.

MR HIRD: Mr Berry, I knew that you could not resist interjecting. These are questions that the committee will have to come to grips with. I think the Chief Minister, by way of an interjection, referred to the confidentiality of the information that is available. It is commercial-in-confidence and it would not be available to this inquiry. I will be opposing this motion, reluctantly, because I think the timing is wrong.

Mr Berry: Because somebody screwed your arm up your back.

MR HIRD: That is why. The timing is wrong. It surprises me that on numerous occasions Mr Berry has to try to make political points. Mr Corbell says that this should be apolitical and it is for the good of Canberra. We all agree with that. But Mr Berry has to point-score, as he usually does. We all know his track record. He is wrong.

I think that if this inquiry is undertaken at the conclusion of the determination by the three governments as to who is the successful tenderer, whether it is the Maglev, the Tilt-train or the very fast train, it would be better placed. It would make it easy. I am in the hands of the house and will do as required, but at this time I must say that I cannot share the enthusiasm of Mr Corbell. I understand his keenness to get this inquiry under way, but it is premature at this time, Mr Speaker.

MS HORODNY (11.29): Mr Speaker, the Greens will support the motion, as we believe it is very important that the full impacts, both positive and negative, of the construction of a high speed train link between Canberra and Sydney are fully explored and understood by the community before any commitment is made by governments to proceed with a particular train option. We have proposed some amendments to this motion which I will talk about in a moment.

While the potential benefits of a high speed rail link to Sydney have been bandied about for a number of years, often this has been done by the proponents of particular train proposals who stand to benefit from its construction and there has been little talk about any potentially negative impacts from a high speed train. A lot of the debate has been focused on the technological and cost differences between the different train proposals and the negative and positive environmental impacts of particular route options and designs, but there has been little debate about the social and economic costs and benefits to the Canberra community of a high speed rail link.

We are not saying that we do not support a high speed rail link between Canberra and Sydney. Rail transport has some obvious environmental advantages over road and air transport, in terms of less air pollution and energy consumption, and it uses less land area than roads. It would be great to see more people and goods travel interstate by train

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