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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (21 April) . . Page.. 1044 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
My motion is really doing just that. It is asking the Government to provide a response to the earlier terms of reference, plus a couple of additional items that have come up since the earlier motion, and then referring this response to the Urban Services Committee for review. We have had informal discussions with Mr Corbell and other members, and I do realise that this motion is going to be amended by Mr Corbell. I have worked with him on how he wants it amended and am agreeing to it, but I will still refer to our original motion to some degree because I think the arguments need to be put on why we did put it up in that way. Only once this process is finished should the Government be allowed to proceed with its recently announced intention to release a draft variation to the Territory Plan to confirm the route of the parkway.
The comment has already been made in the media by the Minister that we do not need an inquiry now as the draft variation will eventually be referred to the Urban Services Committee. That is the totally wrong approach and it shows a lack of understanding for the intent of our motion and the motion in the last Assembly. It is too late in the process to have this broader discussion as the route of the parkway will already be set by the variation. Let me quote from Mr Moore's statement again:
... we would be very concerned if consideration of the draft variation was the only occasion for people to comment on the broad range of matters set out in this committee's terms of reference. We remind members that those terms of reference, which were set by the Assembly, involve considering not just the Maunsell study and the Government's detailed response, but also the full range of transport studies and inquiries that have been done to date, the appropriate place for public transport, the usefulness of strategies to boost local employment in Gungahlin, and the alternative proposals, in the minds of some, for an eastern ring road from Gungahlin.
We do not think that a full airing of these issues will occur in the consideration of a draft variation to the Territory Plan to preserve the Option 3 route reservation -
the one the Government has chosen -
and to delete the reservation to the west of the AIS. Therefore, we consider that our successor committee should be allowed to fully examine all these issues and report to the Fourth Assembly before it is asked to consider that draft variation.
I could not have said it better myself. My motion is really just implementing what Mr Moore was proposing at that time. It is unfortunate that the Urban Services Committee did not immediately take up this inquiry after the election, but it was probably the case that no sense of urgency was felt, as I recall the former Minister for Planning, Mr Humphries, saying before the election that he did not expect the road to be built for about 10 years.
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