Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1304 ..

In the minister’s own words he is now proceeding with a flawed alignment. Or perhaps we should take the word of the Chief Minister who, in the first week of the Fifth Assembly, stated:

Of all the issues that were part and parcel of the election campaign, there was one which was stark and clear: The Labor Party’s position in relation to Gungahlin Drive. … We said to the electorate, “If you elect a Labor government, we will proceed to construct a road along the western route.” … We stood up and said, “A vote for Labor is a vote for the western route.”

It is quite clear that the Labor Party did not keep its promise. They have let the people of the ACT down, which has led to the present situation of so much concern and confusion in the community. I presume that the western route was a non-core promise. With all the work being done now to work through legal cases and work over the issues that have been thrown up by the community, it is disappointing to see that, when the NCA and the Institute of Sport stamped up and down at the last minute, the government just rolled over and did not pursue any of the options before them. The AIS can come into the debate at the very last stage and make the government sit up and listen but, if some scientists come into the debate at a very late stage, the government ignores them.

Mr Corbell has frequently been quoted as promising to conduct an environmental impact statement on the GDE. He said this at a meeting of the Save the Ridge Group, but we have not seen this commitment kept. The minister raised a lot of questions about: don’t oppose the process just because you don’t like the outcome; the process in itself is fine.

When I look back at the Labor election platform on environmental impact assessments that went to the last election I see that the government promised it would consult with the Environmental Defender’s Office to assess if an EIS or a public inquiry was warranted to scrutinise development proposals. I ask the Minister for Environment if this has been done. Was this done when the government retreated from the election promise to build GDE on the western alignment? What did the Environmental Defender’s Office say, or is this in fact another Labor Party promise that has just been thrown out the window?

The Labor Party platform also states that the Labor Party will establish standards and enforce a code of practice for all aspects of environmental impact assessment. Where is this code? As soon as the government came to office all its promises about environmental assessments were abandoned. When the process is completely different from the one that was promised, of course people have the right to raise questions. What more can we do?

Finally, I would like to address the inclusion of up-to-date information in an environmental impact statement. The information that has been relied on in previous environmental assessments on the eastern option is now many years old. In addition, the impact on some species has not been explored in any depth. There has been a lot of concern raised by some members of the community recently about animal species, specifically the echidna, and how their environment is being targeted by the road.

Echidnas were looked at in the environmental assessment of November 2002 in the western alignment and there were some questions raised about the amount of land needed for echidna populations to thrive. The government noted these concerns and were

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .