Page 3978 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 5 December 2007
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minister, but it is indicative as well of the failure of an arrogant government. Fundamentally, it does what it likes without listening to ordinary people in the community.
In the time allowed I cannot possibly go through all of the things listed in the motion, but I will deal with a few of them. Firstly, there is the Tharwa bridge. I am sure the Chief Minister’s intervention relates to more than just heritage issues because this fiasco has been going on for over 400 days, as was indicated by someone on this side of the house. To put the record straight, Val Jeffrey and some other people from New South Wales reckon that it will not cost $25 million to fix the bridge but something less than $5 million.
It is absolutely disgraceful that it has taken so long for anything to happen and for the people of Tharwa to be listened to. This minister has failed by not listening to the people of Tharwa. He has failed by not ensuring there is proper access to that village, which has caused a lot of angst not only in the Tharwa community but generally throughout the Tuggeranong community. It is indicative of a minister who has simply given up listening. It is quite sad, actually, because he listened a lot as a local member, before he became a minister.
Let us look at the GDE farce. Today, we heard about absolute bank-ups on the GDE. If you are lucky, you can now get all the way down to the Glenloch interchange, but it is another fiasco. The price of it has doubled. I accept that there was a court challenge, which I do not think either major party was terribly happy with, but now, for double what it was meant to cost, or more, we only have a two-lane road. As someone said, it is a good road for 22 hours out of 24, but it is those crucial two hours that pose a real problem. Again, the cost has blown out, it is still not finished and we are seeing some incredible delays during peak hour—the very situation it was meant to fix.
Of course, there is also the so-called artwork which suddenly materialised on it. I actually thought that the workmen had put up those stones. There is the one that Mr Pratt referred to as someone’s bad hairdo. I actually think it might be quite dangerous if there is an accident there, caused by someone spinning off the road. So it is not only a waste of money but potentially dangerous.
Let us look at ACTION timetables. I know that the 2006-07 budget was an absolute farce and a fiasco—the horror budget that we actually did not need to have. But out of all the fiascos stemming from that, ranging from school closures through to increased taxes and the two new taxes, the ACTION timetables in November 2006 were an absolute disaster. There were buses going past kids who were waiting for them at schools, and people who simply could not get to work. There are still people coming from Tuggeranong who cannot get to work by seven o’clock at Calvary Hospital because of difficulties with the bus timetables. The Chief Minister had to try to fix that with some significant supplementation in the appropriation bill that we passed yesterday. I still do not think it has been resolved. But that November 2006 timetable fiasco is something for which the minister has to wear responsibility. It just should not have happened. It is the worst timetable that anyone has put out in the history of self-government. It was also a shame because there were a couple of reasonably good innovations in timetables prior to that, and it just wrecked any improvements and put ACTION buses way back.
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