Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4324 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

As chairman, I also would like to thank the committee's secretary, Ms Beth Irvin, for her tireless efforts and the work that she put into the preparation of this report. I thank all those who made submissions and gave evidence before the inquiry. Mr Speaker, I believe that this inquiry is laying the groundwork for things to come - things that will be beneficial not only to Canberra in the jobs sense but certainly to the region. I commend the report to the Assembly.

MR CORBELL (6.01): I think that the very high speed train inquiry, which about half a year ago I moved that this Assembly undertake, has been a very useful exercise. I think it has been more useful than members of the Government, particularly, anticipated at first. I hope that, when they read the report and the recommendations from the committee, they will think again about just what sort of approach they need to be taking to the development of a very high speed train for Canberra.

Mr Speaker, what prompted me to move for this inquiry in the first place was a concern that the Government and other people in Canberra seemed to think that this train was miraculously going to deliver benefits to our city and our economy, for the wellbeing of our community, without any forethought, without any planning or without any strategic approach to ensuring that there were real benefits delivered to our community. What this committee set out to do, and what I believe it has done, was to recommend to the Government a whole series of steps which, if implemented, would ensure that, should the development of a very high speed train go ahead, it goes ahead in a way which is beneficial to our community and where the ACT Government has anticipated any potential impacts on our community and has planned for the future development of the project and what that means for our city, what that means for jobs in our city and what that means for the benefit of the community overall.

There is no doubt, Mr Speaker, that the very high speed train is the most significant infrastructure development project to occur in the Australian capital region for many decades. Its impact, should it go ahead, will be considerable, not only in the development and construction stage but also in the ongoing operational stage. This was certainly reinforced by the number of submissions that the committee received and the number of presentations that the committee heard in its public hearings. Mr Speaker, I was delighted with the response to this inquiry from the Canberra business community, the tourism sector, community organisations and government - both the ACT Government and the Queanbeyan City Council - and with the information that they presented.

I would just like to go through a couple of what I believe are the most important recommendations in the committee's report. Perhaps the most important one that we need to be highlighting is that the ACT Government can now be looking at the information that is available to it in the confidential call for tenders process; assessing which train will have the most benefit for Canberra; and assessing what the different types of technology will mean in terms of job displacement, travel time, changes in transport use, tourism numbers, visitor numbers to our city, visitor trends - whether they stay overnight or whether they come down for the day - all those sorts of things. The Government can be doing that now.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .