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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2352 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The government claims that its free school bus scheme will benefit the environment, but I bet that was not a consideration when it decided to introduce this scheme. It was about buying votes. I understand the conservation council's view that any action that boosts the use of public transport is better than nothing, but I do not think that this scheme will do much to reduce private vehicle use. The cost effectiveness of this scheme as an environment measure and whether the money could be used more effectively elsewhere certainly must be questioned. I suspect that in the short term it will merely subsidise those students who are already travelling by bus. Over time, some students who were previously being driven to school may be using school buses, which would relieve their parents of some extra travel. However, it is highly unlikely that these parents will now hop on a bus, because the rest of the ACTION bus service has not improved at all. ACTION may be getting some new gas buses, but the government has done nothing in this budget about the inequitable and unattractive zonal bus fare system for adults or increasing the frequency of services.

A government that is truly committed to the environment would be looking at ways of reducing our overall transport demands. It would be developing an integrated transport strategy that saves public transport and non-car modes, rather than treating them as an afterthought. The government, instead, is charging ahead with its traffic jam plan, with the Gungahlin Drive extension as its centrepiece. After the estimates hearings, however, you would have to be suspicious about what the government is actually planning to build. Last year's budget allocated $32 million for this road, but at the end of last year the Chief Minister announced that the government had dropped the spur road that connected Gungahlin Drive to Barry Drive at the AIS. The 2001 budget refers to four lanes plus tunnels, which is exactly what was said last year, but under the revised road proposal without the spur there would only be one tunnel, at Bruce Ridge.

The urban services committee's report on this road quotes the government's submission as saying that the originally planned road with the spur would cost $28 million and the revised option would cost $22 million at year 2000 prices, yet here the budget is still saying $32 million. When I raised that before the Estimates Committee and the media, we had the farcical situation of the head of Urban Services saying that it was a mistake, but then the minister's office tried to justify that there was no $10 million discrepancy, getting the numbers totally mixed up. The department had to step in as a scapegoat and say that it was its fault. The final line from the government appears to be that the extra cost is for overpasses at Caswell Drive and Ginninderra Drive, but they are pretty expensive overpasses. It is a wonderful coincidence that it all comes to the original figure of $32 million!

We also found out through estimates that the government still has plans to put a so-called busway along the route of the spur road, which would have just as much impact on the O'Connor Ridge as the original road proposal. I have no problems with having busways, but this is not the right location for one. There is already on the Territory Plan a bus lane corridor marked on Belconnen Way, so we do not need a busway through there unless the government is thinking of turning this busway into a road after it is built.

In the planning area, the government is being hypocritical by saying that it supports sustainable, high-quality design at the same time as it has acted to destroy the integrity of Canberra's Y-plan by supporting the establishment of a commercial centre at the airport,

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