Page 2249 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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this was never going to be adequate for a growing Gungahlin community. It is not adequate now; it certainly will not be adequate in five or 10 years time. If we were going to face the extra disruption at some stage in the future of duplicating this road—and we do need to duplicate it; it will have to happen—it should have happened at once. It simply sums up this government’s attitude to the delivery of infrastructure. It particularly sums up this government’s attitude to the residents of Gungahlin, who continue to be underserviced.
Whilst we can look back with some fondness at how things were done prior to self-government when there was a lot more money—we look at how Tuggeranong was developed at that time—we cannot replicate that because the fiscal circumstances are different. There needs to be some vision. We do not just do stopgaps when we build infrastructure. That is what governments should not be doing. They should be putting in place infrastructure which allows communities to grow and allows people to have confidence—confidence to invest, confidence to establish their businesses and confidence to buy a home in a particular area knowing that there will be reasonable services there.
Instead, at the moment people buying in Gungahlin do not really have a choice. If you wanted a greenfield site in Canberra over the last few years, that has been the only choice. Yet they buy and then they have to beg the government to try and play catch-up on the services. We know that some of those problems go right back, but one would have thought that in these times, particularly when there are such massive amounts of revenue coming in from land sales, much of that obviously in Gungahlin, and taxation revenue that is coming from a lot of those transactions as well, we would see a commitment to deliver the kind of infrastructure that will actually allow Gungahlin to grow and that will actually improve the amenity of the residents of not just Gungahlin but also parts of Belconnen.
Yet this government simply could not see it. It took the short-sighted decision to build a one-lane road that it was always known was going to be inadequate. It took that decision, and it is a demonstration of where this government is in terms of vision and in terms of its capacity to deliver for the people of the ACT, and particularly in this case for the people of Gungahlin. We have heard—Mr Smyth touched on it—the promises for Gungahlin pool; the people are still waiting. If this mob manages to somehow get itself out of trouble and get re-elected, those people will be waiting a long time, because we have heard the promises from this government. It promised it would build the pool before the election but it simply has not happened.
Now we are going to hear them talk about it again, and no doubt they will come out on it prior to the election. Here is a prediction: there will be a promise, prior to the election, from this government that there will be a pool in Gungahlin. You heard it first here. It will happen. But do not believe it, because we have heard it before—just like we heard promises before the last election. What else did we hear before the last election? I think you can take it from the minister’s response that you heard it first here—newsflash—there will be an announcement. The question will be whether you can believe the announcement.
Can you believe any promises that this government makes? What other promises did we have before the last election? Can you think of any? I think of Gungahlin Drive,
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