Page 2844 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 August 2008
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Opposition. “There will be no pool for Gungahlin under a Liberal government,” said the Leader of the Opposition yesterday—no pool for Gungahlin. The story of the week; the issue of the week and of the day: a clear commitment yesterday by the Liberal Party that they will not build a pool for Gungahlin.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Chief Minister, come back to the subject matter of the question.
MR STANHOPE: We were talking about the truth. We have the truth there in relation to Gungahlin. The non-promise probably of the entire election campaign is that the Liberal Party—it is probably the only Liberal Party promise that we should be able to believe over the next 10 weeks—will not build a swimming pool for Gungahlin. And that is a promise that we know they will keep—a promise not to build a pool or an aquatic centre for Gungahlin.
On the question of the GDE, I have explained in some detail the context of the conversation at a lunch at which we discussed the GDE. I discussed the issue that every cabinet has in relation to every budget process every time a budget is brought down: there is only so much money. I can tell you now: in no budget discussion that I have ever had in our seven years in government has there ever been a serious suggestion that, on the basis of our annual capital spend, we have the capacity to spend more than $200 million in one go on a road.
At no stage in the seven years that we have been in government have we had that capacity, except perhaps now as a result of the tough decisions we have taken, the determination to actually plan and govern for the future, to meet the needs of this community. We were prepared to take the tough decisions. We now have the capacity.
One of the interesting things we now see—and we saw it again today—is the sniping of the functional review, the tough decisions, the good budget, the fact that we now have the strongest balance sheet in Australia, the fact that we have a stronger budget position with forecast sustainable surpluses. And all of a sudden, the Liberal Party is very interested in spending the money—the surpluses that have accrued as a result of the tough decisions that we have taken.
In relation to the GDE and issues around the truth, there have been discussions over a number of months over recent time about the need to deal with what we accept to have been serious frustration as a result of the lack of merging capacity, most particularly at Belconnen Way onto Caswell Drive and the difficulties caused by those travelling south on the GDE as a result of residents turning off Belconnen Way onto Caswell Drive. We have been considering for some time the need to duplicate the GDE from Belconnen Way.
I table the following document:
Brief to the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services dated 20 June 2008.
What is that—two months ago? It is a brief to the minister for municipal services on an issue that he had discussed with me at the time—two months ago—in which Roads ACT, having taken advice from Procurement Solutions, recommends to the minister that there be additional works to improve the merging capacity of the GDE south of
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