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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2281 ..

need to concentrate on. The committee has recommended that all applications for approval of multiunit developments include recycling collection as part of the initiative.

There are other issues in relation to the environment that need to be touched on. The committee heard evidence about the $10 million international arboretum which is proposed in this budget, with a small amount of money being spent this year and most of the money being spent next year. While concern was expressed about the quantum of the money, the committee did not want to make recommendations. Mr Stefaniak and I were of the view that perhaps the government should reconsider spending that amount of money at this stage on an international arboretum, especially when you look at it from the point of view of $10 million being provided for a small area of land, 100 hectares, close to town for replanting, whereas $5.5 million has been put in the budget for replanting thousands of acres of burnt forest land and nature park land west of the Murrumbidgee. I do question whether we are getting value for money out of the $10 million. We think that at this stage the $10 million may be better spent in other areas in relation to the city environment.

There are many initiatives that need to be addressed. We have made recommendations about the tenure and basis on which the Commissioner for the Environment works. Mr Stefaniak has touched on the need for ACT Housing to take a lead in energy and water efficiency in public housing, which is a vital issue that has barely received lip-service from this government. We are concerned about the lack of information coming out of the planning authorities on issues in relation to working collaboratively with the community and with the Planning and Development Forum on housing affordability and how the government might implement the 100 affordable dwellings per year proposal. There is no information about how that will be implemented. Also, the committee recommended that the government revert to the former means of addressing information in the land release program.

I have to touch briefly on the dissenting comments made by Mr Stefaniak and me in relation to the Gungahlin Drive extension. We, as Liberal members, consider that it is most important. We made a commitment to build a four-lane road into and out of Gungahlin and have always been disappointed with the two-lane approach put forward by this government. In estimates, the clear evidence of the officials was that the road will work really well except for two hours a day, but those two hours a day are the vital times when people are leaving Gungahlin in the morning to go to work and coming back in the afternoon. By the admission of the officers, we will reach congestion very quickly, which is something that we cannot support. Therefore, we want a four-lane road.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

MS DUNDAS (12.00): Mr Speaker, as members have already noted, this report covers a wide range of issues, as did the estimates investigations as we looked at the main appropriation bill for 2004-05. I would like to touch on some key issues to which I think attention should be drawn in the context of this report. I will start by looking at the budget papers themselves.

Other members have talked about performance measures and those kinds of issues, but with the presentation of the budget papers we were provided with a supplementary budget paper, budget paper No 5, that the committee agreed was a quite interesting

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