Page 4979 - Week 13 - Thursday, 12 November 2009
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MR SESELJA: “It was a successful war on the inflation genie,” Mr Barr chimes in with a timely piece. He says that what caused things to slow down was the commonwealth government’s decision to cut spending; that it had nothing to do with a global recession. It was not the global recession that led to inflation coming down; it was actually the decision to not duplicate Constitution Avenue—that was the key—and of course the decision to gut the NCA.
Mr Barr: I think I might have just been verballed, Madam Assistant Speaker.
MR SESELJA: I thank Mr Barr for his interjection and his contribution, and hopefully he can expand, when he has the opportunity to speak, on how Kevin Rudd got rid of inflation and it had nothing to do with those global factors.
There are a number of other things to discuss in relation to the parliamentary triangle, but it is worth talking about some of the positives as well. I have talked about the Menzies Walk, which has been a great addition and will be a great addition when it is finalised. There is no doubt, though, that at the time the government made the decision to not duplicate Constitution Avenue it maintained the funding for the overpass with Kings Avenue and Parkes Way. That is an important piece of work as well. I do not thing you would want to see either of those scaled back. It was disappointing that the Constitution Avenue duplication was reneged on, but this is important for the future of Canberra in a number of ways.
I received a briefing some time ago from the NCA on this issue. One thing it demonstrated to me was that the foresight was much greater than what we have seen from the ACT government. When the detail was explained to me in that briefing, they said words to the effect that initially the overpass would provide “perhaps more than what we need, but this is about the next 40 years; it is not about the next five years or the next 10 years”. I commend the NCA and those who made those decisions on their foresight in saying, “If you are going to undertake infrastructure like that, why don’t you get it right, not just for a few years before you get another bottleneck but for many years.” So I commend them on that.
That stands in stark contrast to what we have seen in recent years, particularly on Gungahlin Drive where there was amazing short-term thinking. Gungahlin residents, residents of Belconnen and others who use Gungahlin Drive are all paying the price as we speak for that short-term thinking. They are paying it by spending more time in traffic than they otherwise would have, and facing delays for a number of years more than they should have, because the government did not do it right in the first place.
But it does need to be said that this will be important in a number of ways. John Thistleton, when he wrote about it in the Canberra Times, said that the government were cutting Constitution Avenue, and he criticised them for that, but leaving a flyover for politicians; I think they were his words. I think that is a little bit harsh.
In looking at the future growth of Canberra, we know that the east-west roads are going to be a large part of where there is going to be potential congestion. We know
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