Page 159 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2006

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commitment to tackle greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the number of journeys. The only way you are going to reduce emissions through public transport on a busway is if you get lots of people to travel on it. The first thing I would say about that is that a three-minute saving is very unlikely to entice anyone to get on the bus.

What the government’s own figures in the budget papers, the forward figures, show is that, looking ahead and giving consideration to the sustainable transport plan, at around 2007-08, the number of adult journeys flatten off. I imagine that was around the time that it was expected that this busway might come online. The projection is that they will flatten. So I do not quite see how this is going to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions.

I note that there is a degree of embarrassment in relation to greenhouse on the part of this government at the moment, given that they have gone ahead and thrown out a greenhouse strategy. In fact we hear quite often from the planning minister about greenhouse and how the government is tackling it through all sorts of strategies. But they go and throw out a progressive strategy, and what we see is general words about greenhouse gas emissions. If your patronage figures do not increase, how are you cutting the emissions? You will not.

Before I finish on this amendment, you need to be careful. Of course we have been hearing how patronage has been going up. For a long time the planning minister was telling us that, with a straight face. Of course now he specifies adult patronage. Some time ago, last year, I raised this issue of the busway and of patronage figures. I criticised the lack of specific figures demonstrating what effect the busway would have on patronage. The response in the Canberra Times from a spokeswoman for Mr Corbell was that extensive cost-benefit analysis and patronage forecasts had been undertaken before the preparation of the sustainable transport plan. That was their answer: we have done it. Yet in answer to question on notice 813 Simon Corbell said that the $4.2 million to be expended on preparatory work for the busway includes funds for patronage forecasting.

On the one hand, the spokeswoman is saying, “No, that is a silly thing to say, because it has all been done.” Then we get an answer to the question on notice that we are still going to be spending more on it because it has not been done, and it has not been done specifically on the busway. That has been the significant criticism of this: the business case has not been made; the three-minute saving is not enough to justify $150 million. This amendment does not tackle any of these issues and therefore I will not be supporting the amendment.

Question put:

That Mr Corbell’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

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