Page 2229 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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The possibility of this jurisdiction, with the size of our budget, even accepting that we have provision for the largest ever injection of infrastructure in the history of self-government still needs to be accepted and digested in the face of the overall cost of those three major looming priority investments—Majura, Parkes Way and the GDE. They cannot all be done at once.
The government gets representations constantly for the Majura Parkway to be upgraded, for the parkway to be built now. We get similar representations in relation to the GDE. We get similar representations in relation to Parkes Way. These major infrastructure works need to be scheduled. They need to be planned, and that is precisely what the government is doing. We are planning for them and we are ensuring that we have a budget, a balance sheet and an economy that has the capacity to fund that level of infrastructure.
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Mulcahy.
MR MULCAHY: You may need to take this on notice, too, Chief Minister. Can you inform the Assembly whether the minister has received advice as to the likely time it would take to expand the GDE?
MR STANHOPE: I would have to take that question on notice. Not being a portfolio of mine, that is not a level of detail that I am aware of. I am more than happy to take the question on notice, Mr Mulcahy. Then again, I would need to understand whether that was assuming the decision was taken on studies that have been done previously in relation to traffic movements on Gungahlin Drive. These are the sorts of issues that need to be taken into account in relation to the Majura Parkway vis a vis GDE in terms of priority and program. I guess that is at the heart of the question. Those are the sorts of considerations that the government will take into account.
As I said, the government has a $250 million infrastructure program devoted entirely to transport and roads over and above our standing and usual capital works program, which has also been enhanced to the tune of $200 million over this budget period. That is the level of provision and foresight and capacity that the government is dealing with. Even with that level of capacity, a level of capacity which is only realised as a result of decisions this government has taken in recent years to secure—
Mr Pratt: An election-year five-year delay catch up.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Pratt!
MR STANHOPE: It is only with that level of capacity that we are able to even contemplate these works. This is the great irony in this huffing and puffing that we see from the Liberal Party in relation to roads, the GDE and the Majura Parkway. Without the work that this government, my government, has done to secure the budget and the balance sheet, we would not even be having this debate. We would be back in the days of the previous Liberal government—
Mr Pratt: Which had a five-year plan.
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