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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 172 ..

MS TUCKER (4.32): I will not be supporting Ms Dundas' amendments. Her amendments and Mr Corbell's amendment totally change the intent of my motion. Clearly, the key point of my motion is to say that before we engage in major capital works around a freeway we should provide other transport options for Gungahlin.

Ms Dundas said that Gungahlin needs viable and sustainable transport means. I totally agree with that. The whole of Canberra needs viable and sustainable transport means. While it may seem attractive for the short term to build another freeway, it is clearly unsustainable. It will not relieve the traffic congestion being experienced now. It will just move the bottlenecks to different places.

Ms Dundas also said that she thought it was important to remove Monash Drive from the Territory Plan, because if we are going to have Gungahlin Drive we should not have another road as well. The Maunsell report showed that when Gungahlin reaches its projected population, if we continue current patterns of car use, we will need Gungahlin Drive, Monash Drive, Majura Road and three extra lanes on existing roads. That is the traffic jam future.

We have an opportunity to show leadership and move into alternative, attractive ways of dealing with the transport problem. We need to do that before we spend public money on a freeway that is not going to solve the problem and is clearly not a sustainable solution to transport in terms of social equity or the environment.

Mr Corbell, in his response to this motion, misled the Assembly in a way, because he suggested that we have implied that our position is no road ever. What we said clearly through the election campaign was: "Not this road at this point in time." We have said that we need to do this work first. There may be a need for a road in the future. It may not need to be a four-lane freeway. I do not think it would need to be if there was a serious cultural shift in transport in the ACT.

The key point of this motion is to get those other initiatives in place before we make a decision about a freeway. Both Mr Corbell and Ms Dundas are saying they support the development of an integrated transport plan, something I have been raising in this place for six or seven years. It was raised before that in the community and the environment groups which I was part of.

It is a contradiction in terms to say you support the development of an integrated transport plan but meanwhile we will build a freeway. It is totally pre-emptive. I cannot support Ms Dundas' amendments. Because Mr Corbell's amendment is in a similar vein and has the same intent, I will not be able to support it either.

MS GALLAGHER (4.36): Transport solutions for the Gungahlin community are a critical issue for the electorate of Molonglo. The subject was constantly raised with me throughout the election campaign, and I imagine it was with most other Molonglo candidates.

Anyone who has had to sit in traffic whilst trying to get out of Gungahlin or get around it would have to acknowledge the difficulties faced by Gungahlin residents every single day as they try to get to work, school or other parts of Canberra. ACT Labor has worked closely with the communities who may benefit from a new road and those who may be

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