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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2715 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Ms Tucker's amendment should be supported today. If it is supported today I would urge the government to not proceed with the tabling of the variation, as has occurred today, and in fact put that in abeyance until the committee has reported in accordance with the amendment proposed by Ms Tucker if passed by this Assembly.

MR RUGENDYKE (5.16): This debate today is one of many involving this issue. There are more to come. We are merely being asked to note the paper, and we do that. Mr Speaker, there is a lot of mock indignity about today about whether or not we should finally make a decision on this very important issue. This issue was inherited from the last parliament and it has gone on throughout this entire parliament. It is my view that this Assembly would be abrogating its responsibility to the people of Gungahlin and Canberra if we fail to make a decision.

Let's not beat around the bush; there will be opposing views. When we have the debate on the motion of disallowance that will come, obviously, I will inform the house how the government came round to my view on where this very important road should go. There is some sort of conspiracy theory about, I think, that I have just gone along with the government. That is totally wrong.

Ms Tucker: The government has gone along with you.

MR RUGENDYKE: The government has agreed with my final position, and I will explain how that happened. Okay, I will do it now, but I was planning to do it. I will give a brief summary. Since we are only noting today's paper, I will give a brief outline of what happened.

Ms Tucker: I am saying don't note it, actually. I have an amendment you can respond to.

MR RUGENDYKE: I will respond to the amendment, too. Okay. We started with Gungahlin Drive coming down, as it does, from the Barton Highway, across Kaleen and across Ginninderra Drive. Then we had a choice-east or west of the stadium. That is the crux of the problem, isn't it? East or west of the stadium.

I was very keen to listen to all the arguments on whether it should go east or west, even though my first gut feeling or logic was that the road should go behind the stadium, to the east. That was my first gut feeling. Okay? But I listened to all the argument on the submissions. There are a lot of submissions. We looked at them all very rigorously.

I did not want to do this now, Mr Kaine, but I think it was 8 September that I had a meeting with the Save the Ridge people and I thought, "I will offer a compromise here." In this place we try to compromise as best we can. It was my thought that I would suggest that I would not support the spur to Barry Drive across O'Connor ridge if they would agree to the road going to the east of the stadium. The top part of that road is inside the fence. It does not go across O'Connor ridge. It is inside the fence. It might cut across the AIS back carpark, but that was the compromise I tried to reach. I would give up the spur to Barry Drive across the ridge if they would to agree to letting it come behind the stadium. Okay, that was a compromise, and I thought it was a good one. The bit of the road to the south of the stadium, the bit of the road to the east of Calvary

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