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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3376 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

sound good to people listening to them. I certainly have no deeper agenda in those terms. Indeed, I will not be sitting here in the not too distant future.

Mr Speaker, on the one hand we weigh the balance of arguments. On the other hand we take into account the political aspects and the interests of people here, the Gungahlin residents, the Kaleen residents, the O'Connor residents, the Aranda residents, the Bruce residents, the workers, the users, the cyclists and the environmentalists. We attempt to bring our best decision-making capacity to all of these things as we make these decisions.

Decisions of this type are never easy in an Assembly like this. We are always looking for the least worst possible option, and we are also being sure that we do not simply listen to the most dominant of a particular group that is providing an argument, although they may have the weight of argument.

With that in mind, Mr Speaker, I decided that the most effective thing I could do was to make sure I really understood where this route was going to go. I had looked at it on a map, and on a map it looks pretty self-evident. On a map the western route really looks like the more effective way. Therefore, I took the time to go and traverse the complete route in both directions so that I would understand whether the perception that had been created, that O'Connor Ridge would be destroyed by this road, was true or not true.

The perception that the O'Connor Ridge would be destroyed by this road is simply untrue as far as I am concerned, having walked the route, and that is why I will be opposing this disallowance motion today.

Future events that will flow from the decision today will be interesting. Mr Corbell argues that, following the decision today, Labor will somehow have an opportunity to bring this matter back and turn it over, and that that will happen in a short while. There is going to be, as he suggests, an environmental impact assessment. If there is going to be a reconsideration of the draft variation to the Territory Plan the process is going to take the best part of two years. I repeat, the process will take the best part of two years. The fastest variation to the Territory Plan that I am aware of, that occurred when everybody agreed and the community had agreed, was one that was done with regard to St Andrew's Village. There was broad agreement from the community and all those around, and that variation took the best part of six months. That is apart from the environmental assessments which we would have to do and which would have to be done one after the other.

Mr Speaker, this is an appropriate decision for this Assembly to make. This matter has been going on since the mid 1980s. It is entirely appropriate that we look at what it is that we are doing. Any member who has not walked that particular area ought to get out there and do it because it totally changed my perception. I went out there with the clear idea in my own mind that this was the final little trip for me to make sure that I was comfortable about the issue that I was dealing with in order to support the western route. My perception changed. It is that change of perception that has brought me here today to oppose Mr Corbell's motion, and that is what I will be doing.

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