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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3138 ..

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

Gungahlin Drive extension

MRS DUNNE: My question is directed to the Minister for Urban Services. This morning Radio 2CC quoted from the Save the Ridge website a statement by Labor’s newest recruit, the candidate for Kingsford-Smith, Peter Garrett. In a statement dated May 2003 on the Save the Ridge website, he stated:

I call on the ACT Government to oppose a road through O’Connor Ridge. I call on Federal Labor to also oppose a road through O’Connor Ridge...

The statement continued:

As I said four years ago, yours is an honourable cause and you are not alone.

I wonder whether you could set that to music? As far as I am aware, this is not one of the issues on which Mr Garrett has felt a need to change his position since being pre-selected to the ALP safe seat of Kingsford-Smith.

When you have a high profile member of the Labor Party—indeed, a protégé of the federal leader—making comments supporting Save the Ridge; when you have ACT Labor candidates doorknocking wearing Save the Ridge paraphernalia; when the road is two years behind schedule; and when Save the Ridge has taken every trick in the legal battle so far, how can the people of Gungahlin have confidence in Labor’s commitment to Gungahlin Drive extension?

MR WOOD: I did not make any response to Mr Garrett then; I do not know why I need to now.

MRS DUNNE: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Are you dragging the chain on this whole venture in the forlorn hope that Mark Latham will get up federally and you will be able to revert to the western route?

MR WOOD: Last week Mrs Dunne raised a point of order that the supplementary question did not match the first question. That is very much the case here. But I am happy to answer it.

Mrs Dunne: No. It is entirely in order.

MR WOOD: You should just put that as one question and not put yourself out of order. But I am happy to answer it in the sense that the work and the planning are now so extensive that there is no going back.

Lake shore development

MS DUNDAS: My question is to the Acting Minister for Planning, Mr Quinlan. Minister, I draw your attention to increasing community concern about proposals to further develop the shores of Lake Ginninderra and Lake Burley Griffin. What action has

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