Page 2374 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 June 2005
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do the same. They started putting money in the budget last financial year, but that is now two years ago. There is a built-in factor for the prison, but there is not a built-in factor for the dragway. Is that going to be used as an excuse for the government to say that we can have only half a dragway or three-quarters of a dragway or that that they are not going to build it because they cannot spend more than $8 million? If that is the case, there will be a lot of disappointed people.
I have had a look at the make-up of his committee and there are some fundamentally opposing points of view there. Naturally there are residents in Hackett and Downer who do not want to see a dragway. There are residents in Hackett and Downer—I think there were about 19 households back in 1980—who did not want Prime Minister Fraser to cater for the V8s. Maybe he would have done us a great favour had he actually ignored them and done so. I am sure you will find on this committee that there are residents from Hackett and Downer who do not want to see a dragway built. Whilst they are entitled to their view, I would hate to see this government, this Chief Minister, use the fact that the committee does not ultimately agree as an excuse not to build a dragway.
You have got to look at what is in the public good. You are not going to have a huge drama, I would submit to you, with noise. You would probably have a couple of really major events a year, with a lot of it being ACT, NSW and Queensland registered street cars using the dragway. I think it is quite an unreasonable excuse to say, “Our committee couldn’t agree. Some of the residents of Hackett and Downer don’t like it so we will not do it”. That is a feeble excuse and an abrogation of your responsibilities to the people of the ACT to build this dragway, to the people to whom you promised at two elections to build this dragway.
Mr Smyth: Talk softly, Mr Stefaniak. Mr Quinlan has nodded off.
MR STEFANIAK: Oh, okay.
Mrs Burke: Are you with us, Treasurer?
Mr Quinlan: Say something exciting!
MR STEFANIAK: We see now with the $8 million that the Chief Minister has indicated that there will not be a penny more, a cent more. My colleague Mrs Dunne and my other two colleagues on the committee have talked about the arboretum—this grandiose, wonderful creation for Canberra. It is to be a monument to the Chief Minister—you know, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon transported to the banks of the Molonglo! We do have Commonwealth Park. We do have Floriade and we do have Tidbinbilla—albeit 95 per cent of it was burnt, but it will rejuvenate. We have some wonderful areas in the ACT and maybe the arboretum might be a good idea down the track, but not now, not during a drought. I do not think it is a great priority for the people of Canberra, but the people of Canberra certainly want to see a dragway. And you lot have made two lots of commitments, concrete commitments, to the people of Canberra to build a dragway.
My colleague Mrs Dunne indicated that some of the money for the arboretum could be spent on land management projects. I put it you that some of the money from the arboretum could be spent, if need be, in exceeding that $8 million to build a dragway in
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