Page 2473 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 1 July 2008
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The focus is sharply on the fact that this Stanhope Labor government is totally out of touch; the fact that it has had its chance over the last seven years to deliver and it has utterly failed the people of Canberra; and the fact that this government has grossly underestimated the intelligence of the people of Canberra, and indeed even the media. The people will not be fooled by a government that is so grossly out of touch with their needs and aspirations, their concerns about their lifestyles and their interests in seeing this city achieve its potential.
Let me go to the list. I am now going to speak about a very disturbing current example, and it is actually getting worse every minute. The most recent example is this government’s failure to consult with local residents in Osburn Drive, Macgregor, on the installation of a roundabout at the intersection with a new road that leads into the west Macgregor affordable housing development. It would be handy if the minister for municipal services listened to this.
Let me first place something on record, before anyone opposite attempts to make some kind of news revelation about it: I live in Osburn Drive. I live a few houses up from the intersection of Osburn Drive and Archdall Street, which is a major thoroughfare between Macgregor and Dunlop, which carries a lot more traffic than this building road ever will and which has a give way sign and serves the purpose very well. I am happy to give you the house address: it is No 30. You can all come around for a cup of tea if you like.
The government’s failure to consult might be because it thinks it is not a big thing, and maybe that is so for the government—but it is a very big thing for local residents. I have spoken to about 10 local residents in the last day or two. Let me take Mr Gary Schmidt; it is a big issue to him. He is concerned about a road that is going to cut into his nature strip, which will place the roundabout within about five to six metres of his bedroom window and which will cut virtually across a little pathway which children use to go to Macgregor primary. He is concerned about people who might take that roundabout a bit too quickly and about the five or six cars he reckons will probably end up in his bedroom before the year is out, because, I hate to say it, people do speed up and down Osburn Drive. It is a big issue to him.
It is a big issue to Deb next door to him, who today rang up and said, “They are already cutting down the trees.” It is a big issue to people. Mr Schmidt, by the way, came home on Thursday night—he went away, I think, on Tuesday or Wednesday and nothing had happened—and on Friday morning he sees all these pegs, this huge roundabout, opposite where there is going to be this access road into west Macgregor.
None of the residents want the access road. There is a ready-built access road provision in Cannan Crescent, about three or four streets down, where there is a gate, and planners 30 years ago planned for a future suburb. You can do it from there. But the government have bulldozed about 30 trees or so of green space and there is this big vacant patch there, and now, to add insult to injury, they are putting in this roundabout.
I will read through the list I was given by these people: the roundabout will take out a fire hydrant; it will take out a couple of gas mains and stormwater drains; it will take
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