Page 2728 - Week 07 - Thursday, 3 July 2008
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This city is becoming a patchwork quilt in terms of the state of roads. In fact, last week I crossed London Circuit at the traffic lights opposite the Hermitage restaurant and I nearly broke my leg when I stepped onto the road and saw a major dip on London Circuit. It was not visible or evident when I crossed. It was on one side of the median. This poor state of repair is in one of the major parts of our city. I was going to mention it to the minister but he has been away as he has been unwell. That sort of situation should not be there and waiting until somebody is injured or raises a complaint.
Two weeks ago, a constituent broke her ankle when she stumbled in the inner part of the city over an area of footpath that was in disrepair. I know that the minister and his staff cannot have their eye on every piece of pavement and roadwork in the whole territory for every minute of the day. But I would like to think that more money can be assigned to trying to address these issues before they result in more damage and sometimes injury to individuals.
I will conclude my remarks at that point. I believe this is an important topic and I am glad that Mrs Dunne had this listed as an MPI.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Health, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Disability and Community Services, Minister for Women) (4.20): I thank the member for raising this matter of significant importance to the Canberra community. I also thank Mrs Dunne for providing the government with an opportunity to highlight its achievements so far, its plans and commitments for the future and to contrast those with the opposition’s record.
This government understands the importance of infrastructure to any jurisdiction, particularly state and local governments. The government’s commitment to the delivery of high-quality services and to improve the social and economic wellbeing of the community is unparalleled. Infrastructure is an important vehicle for delivering services to the community and is an essential input to almost all economic activities. It is for this reason that the government have placed high emphasis on the maintenance and provision of high-quality infrastructure to support the economy and services to the community since we came to office.
Our record on delivering infrastructure speaks for itself and far eclipses that of the previous government. The comparison could not be starker. When we came to office in 2001, the annual capital works expenditure was around $100 million. This year, the 2008-09 budget papers forecast a record level of expenditure at around $315 million. This is three times higher than when this government came to office. The previous government, in comparison, delivered very little. The numbers speak for themselves. In 1998-99, $64 million was delivered and, in 1999-2000, $76 million was delivered. This is, in comparison on delivery, less than a hundred million on average per annum by the previous government and almost three times that by this government in just one year. Just one year’s expenditure by this government would eclipse the expenditure in the whole term by those opposite.
It is also useful to compare budgets. The average budgeted program between 1998-99 and 2000-01 was a mere $86 million. The average budgeted capital works program
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