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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1301 ..

deferred indefinitely or cancelled. No-one in this place has been able to rebut the fact that the construction of the Gungahlin Drive extension is predicated on 20 per cent of all journeys coming out of Gungahlin, when it is completed, by public transport. It is not premised upon the existing level of public transport utilisation, which is about four to 5 per cent in Gungahlin, it is premised on a fourfold increase in public transport utilisation to 20 per cent.

In all the discussions I have had, for as long as I have been in this place, no-one has been able to demonstrate to me that, even with 20 per cent public transport usage for journeys in and out of Gungahlin, this road is not justified. That is the basis on which it is justified; that is the basis on which the analysis for its provision has occurred. Do not criticise the process when you are unhappy with the outcome. The process in this case has been adequate, thorough and comprehensive. Stick to the argument, which is reasonable, even if you do not agree with it and think that the road is not required. That is a matter of principle, which I am prepared to accept in a debate, but it is not reasonable to criticise a process that has been more than adequate, comprehensive and detailed and that was undertaken over an extensive period.

MRS DUNNE (4.09): This matter of public importance is about the necessity for environmental impact statements for all major capital works. It seems, however, that the matter of public importance has been side-tracked or used as an excuse to talk about Gungahlin Drive. I would like to talk about environmental impact statements for major capital works but I might also digress on to Gungahlin Drive.

It is unusual for me to say this but, when the Chief Minister answered a question in question time today, he was right—I agreed with him; it is an unusual thing, so it should be marked—that really, to all intents and purposes, every time we conduct a preliminary assessment in the ACT, we conduct an environmental impact statement. It has been the practice over the years since the application of part 4 of the land act, because there is a sliding scale of environmental assessments, to obviate the need for ramping up to the next level, for people who prepare preliminary assessments to effectively prepare what would be recognised as an environmental impact statement in any other jurisdiction. So it is essentially ‘a rose by any other name’. The quality and the quantity of information that needs to be provided in a preliminary assessment in the ACT is comparable with that required by an environmental impact statement in any other jurisdiction.

It is misleading for opponents of Gungahlin Drive to say that because we have not ramped it up to the third level we have not conducted an environmental impact statement, when the information and the rigour required for a preliminary assessment is comparable, not necessarily by law but by practice—by convention in this place—in this jurisdiction. This is something people need to understand about the operation of the land act. It may not be convenient for opponents of a particular piece of public works, or even private works, to recognise that this is the case but, to all intents and purposes, as the Chief Minister and the Minister for Planning have said today, a preliminary assessment equates to an environmental impact statement.

By way of information, I think that only once has any major development in the ACT progressed beyond the preliminary assessment phase to a public environment review. That was the McKellar soccer club back in 1996, from memory. That is the only time we have moved off what looks like the bottom rung. That is because of the rigour and the

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