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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (21 April) . . Page.. 1059 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Interestingly, they have decided now, in the capital works program, to duplicate a bit of it. That is certainly welcome, Mr Speaker. But if you spoke to any citizen in Gungahlin about the duplication of Gungahlin Drive they would say, "Well, why aren't they doing all of it? Why do they keep doing it in bits? Why do they keep digging it up, building it, tearing it up again and rebuilding it? It doesn't make any sense". We agree with them, Mr Speaker. We on this side of the chamber agree with them.

Mr Speaker, to finish off, this amendment will complete the work that the Legislative Assembly Planning and Environment Committee in 1997 started. It will allow all of those citizens who have made representations to have them included in an inquiry. As Mr Moore said earlier in the debate, once the Assembly committee has reported, Mr Smyth, if he is a sensible Minister, if he is a conscientious Minister, will take the recommendations of the report and they will form the draft variation. They will form what is in the draft variation. That is a consultation process, Mr Speaker, as you know.

Mr Smyth wrote to the Standing Committee on Urban Services asking the committee not to consider an inquiry into the John Dedman Parkway as proposed by Ms Tucker, saying that instead it should be done through the draft variation process. Mr Smyth only did that when he realised what Ms Tucker was proposing. He did not do it beforehand, so I would have to question, first of all, Mr Smyth's intention in that regard. Nevertheless, let me put it on the record once and for all, and I am sure my colleagues on the committee can confirm this. (Extension of time granted) I thank members. The committee made a very conscious decision that it would not respond to Mr Smyth's correspondence until the Assembly had considered the motion proposed by Ms Tucker. The committee decided that it was the appropriate courtesy to extend to the Assembly that the Assembly should make up its mind on the motion before it, being subservient to the Assembly, decided what it would be doing in relation to the John Dedman Parkway. That was an entirely appropriate course of action, and it was a course of action agreed to by all members on the committee.

Mr Speaker, this is a sensible proposition. It is a proposition that will allow the question of the John Dedman Parkway to be resolved in a clear and open way. It will allow all of the questions surrounding the provision of the road to be resolved in the most effective way possible. It will still allow the road to be built at the time that Mr Smyth has estimated it will be built - 2005. It will still allow that to happen. But we have to do it in the right way, Mr Speaker, and we have to take into account the concerns and the issues that confront modern societies today, not the NCDC when it was building parkways in the 1960s.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 74. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for a later hour this day.

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