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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 848 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

the need to establish a viable, vibrant town centre for Gungahlin. The government needs to implement active strategies for encouraging employment location and generation within the Gungahlin area.

Mr Speaker, I must take exception to Mr Hird's comments that the majority report has come down with new initiatives. Unfortunately, Mr Hird seems to pass off existing government policy as a new idea. It is not something that I am prepared to endorse.

This government should be looking at using taxation and other charges, land prices and other mechanisms to provide an incentive to employers, both in the public and private sectors, to locate their activities in Gungahlin. This would assist in not only starting to contain a percentage of journeys within the Gungahlin area, thereby reducing demands on external travel and on external arterial roads, but it would also have significant social benefits for the people of Gungahlin themselves. It would help to create a vibrant, effective Gungahlin town centre and would simply act as a further spur for additional services and facilities.

Taking a proactive approach to addressing the reasons underlying Gungahlin's transport problems is one vital step. Another is to ensure that Gungahlin's arterial road network is at an appropriate level. As recommended in the majority report, there is a compelling need for an additional arterial road link to Gungahlin. This connection should link Gungahlin to the existing parkway network.

I think it is important to dispel a few myths. The construction of an additional arterial road link from Gungahlin is not primarily about facilitating greater access to Civic. It is, instead, about linking Gungahlin to the broader parkway network and allowing Gungahlin residents to have faster and more efficient connections with Tuggeranong, Woden and Weston Creek. The by-product of this, of course, is that it reduces congestion on Northbourne Avenue.

Road provision cannot be viewed in isolation to other transport solutions. The majority report, I believe, tends to focus almost overwhelmingly on road-based solutions. In reality, while the majority report rightly identifies the needs for an additional arterial road, it does not adequately address the issues confronting Canberra's public transport system.

Evidence received during the inquiry highlights the fact that Canberra's public transport system is not a viable alternative to private vehicle use for the majority of the city. You only have to look at the fact that Gungahlin is the only town centre without any shared zone in the city for public transport use. The average cost of catching a bus from Gungahlin to the city is $4 one way. When you take account of the added convenience of the motor vehicle, it is little wonder that people feel prepared to pay for parking in the city each day when they are travelling from Gungahlin rather than catch a bus. The evidence received during the inquiry showed that some of the factors associated with problems with the public transport system include the frequency of service, length of journey and cost.

Canberra is the city which says it takes its environmental responsibilities seriously. Yet the key local generator of CO2 emissions is Canberra's transport sector and 22 per cent of all of our greenhouse gas emissions come from transport emissions. Therefore,

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