Page 2377 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 June 2005
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the world’s cleanest and most plentiful water. I contend that in 10 or 15 years people will travel long distances to see a city that has got it right.
The proposed dragway is another project—and here we will not see confirming murmurs from the opposition—that we consider should be low priority, with funding redirected for more urgent needs. The difficulties in selecting a suitable site and in assessing noise and other environmental issues, which have resulted in the $4 million allocated to the project being rolled over from 2004 to 2005—it was $8 million I believe—are not going to go away. The government’s own analysis of dragway options found that there is not a suitable site for the dragway in the whole of the ACT, and there is absolutely no evidence to show that significant social or economic benefits will result from a dragway. Indeed, I have never been able to understand why the Liberals’ dragway—we all remember that sticker “Vote for a dragway: vote Liberal”—has become ALP policy, against the advice of its own report.
Not only has the government failed to invest in public housing, but also it has not pursued innovative models of shared equity or other forms of permanent affordable housing, nor has it kept its promise to invest in water and power efficiencies for the public housing that it has. One of the key issues facing our community is housing affordability, and I believe a Labor government should have made that a priority ahead of the arboretum and the dragway. I will be opposing this line in the budget on the understanding that, if I were to attract majority support, the onus would be on the government to come back to the Assembly with those items removed from the projected expenditures and extra funds for public housing proposed instead. I would also be willing to see some dollars spent on the land management measures that Mrs Dunne mentioned.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Arts, Heritage and Indigenous Affairs) (4.28): I wish to respond to those issues that have been the major focus of debate or discussion on this particular line. Essentially, they boil down to the arboretum and the dragway, interestingly, and. I am happy to respond to those. To the extent that members have focussed on those particular issues, I accept that they are reasonably comfortable with much of the other expenditure proposed through the Chief Minister’s Department, and I thank them for that.
In relation to the dragway, there is a very good process in place. We have made a commitment to support motor sport in the ACT and I thank Mr Stefaniak for his gracious acknowledgement of that in relation to Fairbairn Park. There are issues there and I acknowledge we are working very closely, through the Treasurer, Mr Quinlan, with Fairbairn Park to address some of the longstanding issues they have experienced with their site. We are very happy to be working with Fairbairn and I hope at the end of the day, through the process being pursued, we will be able to deliver a much better facility and service for them.
Similarly, I think we all know the history of the dragway. The dragway debate has been around for some years. My government committed $8 million to this project and that was matched, I note, at the last election by the Liberal Party. We went to the last election with exactly and precisely the same commitment, namely $8 million. I find it somewhat bemusing now to see that the $8 million commitment the Labor Party made is suddenly
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