Page 958 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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gets through the Assembly, after it has been introduced, at the final hurdle we lose the planning minister!
That is just poor governance, and the question will be whether the new minister, at short notice, is going to be able to be across all the detail. There are still some very important details to be worked out in planning system reform. Industry still has some concerns. Even though it is largely happy with it, and we in the opposition are largely happy with it, there are some significant concerns. If the new planning minister is not across it and does not get those details right, the consequences could be quite significant. It would be a tragedy if, after all the significant work that many officials have put into this process, it fell down at the final hurdle and we ended up with a poor planning system when we have the opportunity to create a much better one than we have at the moment.
No matter what the Chief Minister says about how the timing was just coincidental, everyone knows that the planning minister was dumped because he criticised the Chief Minister and criticised government policy. That is fine, but it should be acknowledged that this has happened because of a personal spat. This reshuffle is not about what is in the best interests of the territory. Certainly the timing, in the lead-up to the budget, is not about what is in the best interests of the people of the ACT.
We have spoken a lot about the busway. Really, this project is the pin-up legacy project that succinctly represents the failure of this government. Today the Chief Minister attempted to justify it by saying, “Well, it was always only about the long-term planning exercise.” What rubbish! Everyone knows that Simon Corbell wanted this project to go ahead, and go ahead soon. That is why the detailed design work was done. That is why the marketing contracts were signed. The Chief Minister might call it consultation, but on the contracts register it is called a marketing contract.
Money has been spent on marketing and detailed design. We are told now that $4 million has been spent to reserve a piece of land. What a load of rubbish! This was a project that Simon Corbell wanted to take forward. He did not have the support to take it forward, but apparently he was given licence to spend millions of dollars trying to get it up. That has been one of the great failures of this government. It is just a fine example of throwing away millions of dollars for very little gain.
If we are to believe the new transport minister and this project does not go ahead for at least the next 40 years or so, much of this work will be absolutely redundant and will have to be done again. It is money that has not been well spent. The glossy newsletters and the marketing of this exercise have been a great thing for public transport. Today the Chief Minister said that it was about consultation, yet the transport minister says it is not going to happen in his lifetime. The consultation would have consisted of: “What do you think about a busway being built in 50 years time? What kind of consultation is that? Who is going to have strong views one way or the other about something that may happen 50 years from now?” The Chief Minister’s explanation is absolutely beyond the pale.
In my comments about the LDA I touched on the issue of housing affordability. Recently the Chief Minister launched the housing affordability program, and the opposition certainly welcomes the fact that the government has finally started to do
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