Page 3862 - Week 12 - Thursday, 23 November 2006
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Liberal Party put in our way to construct the Gungahlin Drive Extension, the most significant piece of road infrastructure constructed in the ACT for decades. The major, most significant piece of capital works being currently undertaken is, of course, the Gungahlin Drive Extension, the most significant piece of road infrastructure delivered in the ACT in decades. We are doing that with no cooperation from you—in fact with your benign opposition; the barriers that you put in our way, the obstruction that you created.
You did not deliver or help to deliver the Gungahlin Drive Extension at all. You obstructed it at every opportunity or step that you could because essentially that is the only role you see for yourselves: an opposition that know nothing but opposition, an opposition without policies, an opposition without commitment, an opposition with no commitment to working cooperatively, no desire to work cooperatively, an opposition that is prepared to talk Canberra down.
Just imagine a person in this place standing up and saying to the world at large, to the rest of Australia, “Why is it that we have the worst road network and infrastructure in Australia?” What a joke! How could anybody in this place who pretends to stand up for Canberra or represent Canberra send that message to the rest of Australia—and they are out there ready to belt us—to the Daily Telegraph? This sort of Canberra bashing is manna to papers around Australia. But here we have a Liberal Party spokesperson standing up and saying, “Why have we got the worst roads in Australia?” What a load of garbage! What a load of garbage!
Transport—demand responsive
MR PRATT: My question is directed to the Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services and concerns demand-responsive transport. We will probably get a more sane answer to it than we did to the previous questions. Minister, on 9 March this year, this Assembly passed the Road Transport (Public Passenger Services) Amendment Bill 2005, which was supposed to enable the introduction of demand-responsive public transport systems. What actions have you and/or your department taken to facilitate demand-responsive public transport in the ACT since then?
MR HARGREAVES: I thank Mr Pratt for the question supplementary to the question and supplementary question to the Chief Minister. I admire his ability to overhear my colleague Mr Barr, who said to me, “What has been happening lately with demand-responsive transport, Johnno?” This guy has incredibly acute hearing!
As Mr Stanhope, the Chief Minister, just said, it is not the business of the government to own taxi companies and it is not the business of the government to own mass transport things other than our bus service. That is not our business. The demand-responsive legislation was introduced to facilitate the provision by other carriers of alternative services to those being provided either by ACTION or by the other mass transport carriage system, Canberra Cabs. I would have to go back, and I will go back, to find out how many accreditation applications have been received. I will bring that back to you, Mr Pratt. I appreciate the questions because I will actually find out.
However, let me say that one of the reasons that we were interested in having the demand-responsive transport legislation was to create a legal opportunity for rather
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