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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1753 ..

Mr Moore: But that takes it beyond the $45,000, does it not?

MRS CARNELL: I am not sure that it does, Mr Moore. My understanding is that the cost of government members will be met from their respective organisational budgets. My advice is that the total cost to government is in the vicinity of $45,000.

MR WOOD: My question is to Mr Humphries. Minister, could you tell the Assembly why the Maunsell study has been extended from May to September? Could it be because you have found a way to deflect the problems likely to be caused by the parkway from your electorate to another?

MR HUMPHRIES: I do not understand the last part of the question, Mr Speaker. Perhaps Mr Wood can explain the overly subtle nuance to me at some other stage. Mr Speaker, members will be aware that there has been considerable debate about the Maunsell study and about the way in which the process has proceeded for assessment of alternative routes for a possible John Dedman Parkway. Members will also be aware that that process has been controversial. Indeed, I suspect that some members have attempted from time to time to exploit the controversy in that respect and perhaps obtain some political advantage in doing so.

My view is that the Maunsell study has been appropriately extended to allow for further concerns raised by participants in the workshops to be addressed. I understand that some people in that process wanted additional work to be done. I know that there have been at least three different workshops conducted at various stages by Maunsells to enable them to gauge community feeling about the various options. The third workshop was held on 12 April and that focused on an initial assessment of options. As a result of community concerns raised at that workshop, an extra workshop is to be held to review the study context and the range of options, including the "No John Dedman" alternatives, in mid-June. This follows site inspections of the John Dedman route alternatives by workshop participants. After the June workshop a preliminary assessment will be prepared and issued for public comment later in the year and, if I direct the preparation of an environmental impact statement, an additional period for public comment of two months or more is envisaged when the EIS is finalised. So, Mr Speaker, it depends very much on what further work, if any, is required once the decision is made on the outcome of the preliminary assessment.

On 20 February this year the Assembly passed a motion requiring the Planning and Environment Committee to undertake a wide-ranging inquiry into the future route of the parkway and noted that the inquiry would take into account the results of the current study by Maunsells. I should emphasise that the current study is to fix the route for the parkway if, and when, it is ever built. There is no Government decision to proceed with a parkway. If this Government made an in-principle decision to do so it could quite probably not be in office when the time came to carry that decision into action. Estimates have ranged between five and 10 years for the actual decision to be made to implement that process, and I am not sure that any of us count on being around for as long as that.

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