Page 2174 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
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Mr Smyth: It is a perfectly reasonable question. The chairman should have ruled it out of order.
MR HARGREAVES: Here we go again. They cannot help themselves; they have to interject. I asked Mrs Burke to produce evidence of that. She could not.
Mrs Burke: I asked you a question; that’s all.
MR HARGREAVES: She asked a question—what a lame excuse. We all know—this is our so-called profession—that you can impugn somebody’s reputation by a mere question. We all know that. The standing orders have a provision in relation to that. If those people over there have any evidence whatever to back up the suggestion that I have breached federal legislation, let them come forward and put it down, instead of impugning reputations. This is just not acceptable.
I had a good look at the estimates committee report and at the dissenting report. Again, in terms of those opposite, it was singularly lacking in substance. When you have a look at the dissenting report, for example—we are talking about the recommendations—you see the recommendations that pertain to the Department of Territory and Municipal Services. “Pathetic” is the word that comes to mind.
Debate interrupted in accordance with standing order 74 and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for a later hour.
Sitting suspended from 12.29 to 2.30 pm.
Questions without notice
Gungahlin Drive extension
MR STEFANIAK: My question is directed to the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services. Minister, last week in the Assembly you stated, “I do not see the management disaster with the GDE. We delivered on time and on budget.”
The schedule adopted by the Canberra Liberals was to have the road finished as a four-lane highway by October 2004 at a cost of $32 million. The Glenloch interchange was estimated to cost $15 million. In 2001 the Labor Party promised—as Mr Corbell said in 2002—“to ensure that the western alignment was built on time and in accordance with the previous government’s capital works program”.
This government will eventually deliver a two-lane road several years late at a cost between $108 million and $112 million. That cost includes the cost of building the Glenloch interchange. Minister, why do you not consider the handling of the GDE to be a management disaster, given that it will be several years late, have two lanes instead of four, and cost approximately $110 million instead of $47 million?
MR HARGREAVES: If ever there were an opportunity, this is it.
Mr Stanhope: Resist it though, Mr Hargreaves.
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