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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 855 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

If people can get to Sydney in 31/2 hours by road they will all want to live in Sydney, so we cannot upgrade the road". What sort of logic is that? That is the same logic that is being applied now: Maybe we should not have a fast train because people can travel the distance in an hour and they may want to live in Sydney. That is a decision that people are entitled to make, and you do not stop economic and other progress because people might change their living place. I do not understand the logic of that at all.

I turn to this question about the impact on the transport modes. The suggestion in this amendment is that the evaluating committee and the proponents of the proposals that are before that committee have not taken that into account. Ms Horodny sat in on a briefing that I arranged when I was chair of the committee a year ago and that others have adverted to. The two major proponents came before us. One of the reasons why they believe their proposal to be feasible financially is that they have taken into account how many people travel up and down the highway by car, and they believe that they can entice those people out of their cars and onto the train. It would not be economically viable unless they achieve that. We already know that there will be a massive impact on road transportation between here and Sydney in terms of the private use of motor vehicles if the proponents of the fast train have got their research right.

What effect will it have on heavy freight transport? My guess, on the evidence that I have had put to me, is zero, because these fast trains are not designed to carry heavy freight. A very fast train will not take any heavy freight off the existing rail line or the road system because it is not designed to handle it. It will handle the same sort of freight that is currently handled in the cargo holds of aircraft and will probably use a similar mode of containerisation because it lends itself to that. But heavy stuff, such as coal and steel? Not likely. The trucks carrying those sorts of goods will still be travelling up and down the highway. I do not think that any inquiry that we can conduct here in the ACT in isolation can solve the problem of the traffic that moves up and down the Hume Highway, or the Princes Highway for that matter, and I doubt that we can come to any real conclusions about it.

While I still have my reservations about whether the study proposed by Mr Corbell will be successful or that it will achieve the objectives that he is seeking, and while I sympathise with the desire, which I share, to have the answers to the questions that he is asking, I do not think that this inquiry will provide them, because the information that is needed is simply not going to be available in the next three to six months. I am willing to have the committee look at that - I think that is reasonable - but I do not see the logic of the basis of the amendments being put forward by Ms Horodny. She does not seem to understand the process that is currently going on. Neither of these amendments can affect that evaluation in any way, so I do not understand why we would adopt them. I think we should simply adopt the terms of reference put forward by Mr Corbell, let the committee have a look, and see whether, in their view, there is any merit in proceeding with the inquiry at this stage, after they have had a preliminary assessment of it.

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