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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 5 Hansard (8 May) . . Page.. 1761 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

being continued for the Dickson-Woden and Belconnen Way cycle lanes and that a cycling network plan, cycle path maintenance and Travelsmart are to be funded. I am having a lot of trouble with Travelsmart numbers as well. I have been trying to follow that. I will pick it up in the estimates process. I cannot work out what is happening with the money there.

As well as funding the implementation of the first phase of the sustainable transport policy, the government is continuing funding for a public transport futures feasibility study. When, if ever, will the progressive thinking that these initiatives promise actually percolate through to the government's actions in planning for the transport needs of this city? The rhetoric and the studies are there, but when we look at the government's present day actions it becomes clear that the culture change has not really happened. New behaviours are something for some time in the future, but certainly not now.

I have mentioned the woodlands already, but in the area of transport the issue of the Gungahlin Drive extension illustrates this point. The government plans to spend $32 million on a socially divisive and environmentally damaging road that will increase our car dependency and still not solve the problems of congestion as car use grows and keeps filling up the roads. This is despite having been elected on the platform of not building this road on the eastern alignment. Although the government has presented itself as helpless following the National Capital Authority's refusal to allow the eastern alignment, the government remains committed to building another road and will not look at the alternatives.

This is an opportunity for the government to take a proper look-evidence-based policy development-at the question of transport in Canberra. Transport in Canberra is not just about more roads and more cars. That was the plan of the 1960s and it has failed. Any decent analysis of the efficacy of building more roads and filling them with cars will show that that policy is a failure. That cannot be disputed by a search of the literature on the subject.

The government and the opposition are not prepared to show courage in this regard. They are making decisions on it purely for political reasons. They have neglected Gungahlin for 10 years or more and are now succumbing to pressure. Instead of showing leadership, working with an evidence-based policy and working with the community to take into account sustainability at all levels, we have a poorly advised decision which is going to cost a lot of money and is not going to solve the problem. It is going to create problems, as I said.

The strategies are supposed to be happening, but the thinking and action seem to be for more and more of the same. In terms of the road, I ask: where is the consideration of the so-called externalities, the hidden costs of this road? Where is the triple bottom line accounting in this respect? It is not there. The sorts of hidden costs I am talking about are increased air pollution and the health implications, the loss of equity in that people who live in Gungahlin will need to have cars to get around, the loss of land for development because of the need for car parks and roads, and the loss of protection of the environment in this case.

The people of Gungahlin need and deserve sound transport solutions. Possible alternatives could include a combination of things, some of which are already being

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