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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 853 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

spends much more than that on car races. This government spends much more than that on sports stadiums. This is a small amount of money when you compare it to what this government has spent money on in terms of projects it supports. This is nothing compared to what they have given to Impulse Airlines.

What are we talking about here? This is a committee that apparently had the brief of looking at the costs and benefits of different road options. We are told that there is going to be a difference of a maximum of $7 million, and it is hard to understand that. The committee said:

So the costing is fairly rough anyway. But we will stick with these figures. This is the rationale-there is no cost to the environment at all. We had a committee in this place that looked at environmental accounting. I would have thought contemporary thinking on economics was now pretty well established in that we do not just look at the bottom line. The major parties talk about the triple bottom line.

This committee is basically saying it will cost this much to compensate or build another car park. It is saying that it will cost so much to soundproof residences at the AIS-I am very interested to hear that the government will pay for soundproofing at the AIS because that is going to open up a lot of claims. I think the ACT community would be fascinated to know government is prepared to do that. (Extension of time granted.) People on Limestone Avenue would like to know that they can now ask the government for money for soundproofing because they are living on a major road that is certainly impacted by traffic. We will wait to see what comes out of that. I am very interested in the government's response to that statement-that they are saying that they would pay for this and are accepting it as a government responsibility.

What we have ended up with here is a very superficial analysis of the cost of building things. According to this committee, environmental, social and recreational considerations have no value. So when they do a cost-benefit analysis they say, "It is easy. We will go east because it is going to cost more to go west." This is based on totally simplistic analysis. If there was any real sophistication in this analysis, you would be looking at issues like local pollution; you would be looking at the implications for greenhouse. I would have thought even these people would know that greenhouse is an issue; that even these people would know that greenhouse is now internationally recognised as the major environmental problem. Even these people, I would have thought, would know that we have a responsibility as a local community. Even these people, I would have thought, would realise that local communities all over the world are grappling with this problem. It is difficult and it takes courage and leadership, but future generations will pay if we do not take a strong position on these issues.

I am glad that I can say that this is not a definitive statement on this issue. We will have a debate in this parliament. Mr Corbell has just said that he is going to move a motion and we will have a debate on that motion. Mr Michael Moore and Mr Kaine obviously have not spoken yet on this issue. They will be crucial to the result of this discussion. I believe that Mr Kaine has a very clear understanding of the issues at stake here; and I cannot say anything about Mr Michael Moore at this point. But I hope that we see

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