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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (6 December) . . Page.. 3743 ..

Mr Berry: Why don't you write to Mr Beazley yourself, Harold?

MR HIRD: Listen to little Sir Echo. He is like a big tin - he makes a lot of noise but does not deliver much.

Mr Stanhope will have the opportunity to show that he has the backbone to make certain that we as a territory get a fair go and to tell his federal leader and his federal colleagues to leave their grubby hands off this territory.

Mr Berry: Ha, ha.

MR HIRD: I hear sniggers opposite, but I believe in facts and I believe in people. Mrs Carnell stood up to the Prime Minister of Australia - not once, not twice, but on several occasions. Mr Humphries has too. He has shown that he has the backbone to stand up not only for this territory but for the region. We are the national capital. Mr Stanhope needs to show us that he has the ticker to do the same.

Like most people, I consider improved roads to be a boon and not a boondoggle. A boondoggle is a nonsense. We need to send a clear message to the federal ALP that its priorities are wrong and that under the roads program as brought down by the federal government $20 million should go to a deserving territory for better roads.

MR QUINLAN (12.08): Mr Speaker, I rise briefly to inform the house that I have just had a call from Mr Kim Beazley, who is terrified and has asked me to get Harold Hird off his back as soon as I can. The polls are going through the floor. He is very concerned that the government has sent their best man after him.

I want to make a couple of other points. I have looked around our roads locally, and from my observation they are going to pot - or potholes. It is a bit of a disappointment to see that we are spending a lot of money on prettying up paving here and there and yet the roads are falling into disrepair. They are an asset on our books, and the recovery cost is going to be larger than the ongoing maintenance cost would be.

We somehow managed to pretty up the town with flowers during the Olympic Games, and the government congratulated itself on what a great job it did, but it seems that very little has been put in train to do something about our roads. I heard a guy on the radio this morning say, "It is on the program or it is not on the program. It does not matter whether the road is crook or not. We are paving the good ones and not fixing the ones that really need repair." We need a little bit of flexibility. I think the government should take a good look at our local roads while we are talking about them.

I would also recommend to the government that if we are going to spend some of this money we should look seriously at Majura Road and look seriously at enabling the development of the Majura transport hub. If we get the very fast train, we have the prospect of building Canberra as a genuine regional centre and diversifying the economic base of the place. Use this money to its best value for the ACT economy.

I want to refer to Mr Hird's comments about Mr Warren Snowdon. As some would know, Mr Warren Snowdon was a local Canberra boy originally and obviously learned a little. If Mrs Carnell had said the things Mr Snowdon said in criticising expenditure

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