Page 1573 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 May 2006
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Late last year, as Mr Pratt indicated, Engineers Australia issued a favourable infrastructure report on the ACT’s broad range of public assets. The report card covered everything from roads to airports, stormwater and telecommunications. Mr Pratt did not tell us that roads in the ACT, on which most of his speech was centred, received a B rating in the infrastructure report card, indicating that they are fit for current uses and anticipated uses into the future. He neglected to say anything about that B rating for our roads. That is strange, is it not? He is another cherry picker, Mr Speaker.
Mr Pratt: Do you have the funding to maintain that rating?
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Pratt, I heard you in silence. Whilst the report acknowledged that the ACT’s roads are generally in better shape than those in other jurisdictions, Engineers Australia argued that we cannot afford to be complacent, given our population forecasts and the ageing nature of our infrastructure. I fully agree with the sentiments expressed in that report.
It is also pleasing that a recent independent survey conducted for Urban Services revealed that 83 per cent of Canberrans are satisfied with the maintenance of main roads and arterial roads—83 per cent, almost the same as the number of people that voted for the Labor Party at the last election. There is still much work to be done to sustain the condition of the ACT’s roads.
My department has development a management plan covering existing and future requirements as well as systematically inspecting the condition of the total arterial road network on a three-year cycle. A significant investment has been made in developing a system to collect and retain information on road conditions as well as to assist departmental staff in identifying and developing future road maintenance programs.
We are also looking at what other jurisdictions in Australia are doing, with a view to ensuring the practices we adopt in the ACT are most appropriate for our environment. For example, officers of Roads ACT recently visited Brisbane City Council to get some understanding of how they managed their roads. In April, an officer of Roads ACT attended the asset management conference run by the Municipal Association of Victoria which attracted a large number of councils from Victoria as well as New Zealand.
Roads in the ACT are generally in a satisfactory condition, but it takes a major effort and a large continuing investment of funds to sustain them. Good roads are important not only for the community to safely and easily get round town but also for the economy to prosper and grow. This government recognises the importance of maintaining our existing assets well into the future.
Mr Speaker, I need to address some of the things Mr Pratt said in his speech. Firstly, he laid at the government’s door the blow-out for the GDE. I suggest that it was in fact the now opposition that started the bunfight about the alignment which delayed the project a very long time. The court challenges delayed it even further. While the delays were going on because of court challenges, the price of fuel went up. Even Mr Pratt would know that diesel is part of the actual fabric of the road itself. Not only does the big machinery use 70 litres of it an hour but also it is in the road itself. Because of the
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