Page 1819 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 May 2010
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would realistically deal with freeing up bus transport down Northbourne Avenue would cost tens of millions of dollars—not a few million dollars, not $10 million, but tens of millions of dollars. Imagine the sort of engineering that would be required to achieve some of those outcomes. And it is not helpful to dismiss the reality of that in the airy way that Ms Le Couteur dismisses it now.
There are many aspects of this particular motion that the government has absolutely no concern with. I am sure Ms Le Couteur, in a slightly more benign frame of mind and in a frame of mind more inclined to work productively with the government and others, rather than standing on a soapbox and asserting or taking the high moral ground in relation to everything that might be associated with sustainability of public transport, if she evinced a genuine interest in actually working with others, would be prepared to acknowledge that significant amounts of the very nice document tabled today—her active transport plan, a very nice production—were taken from work done by previous governments, most notably this government, in relation to the development of sustainable transport plans. I have no doubt that if we actually go through it closely, charges of plagiarism would probably be almost appropriate in relation to the extent to which it takes from sustainable transport work done by others in this place over many years.
So I think a little less of the moralising in future, Ms Le Couteur, and I am sure our relationship will go from strength to strength rather than actually being debilitated by that moralising “you can trust us and nobody else, only we are interested in these issues and it is only us that you can trust” sort of attitude that was really the feature of your speech today—either that or get a new speechwriter. I must say that was a snippy, vindictive, quite nasty little effort, Ms Le Couteur, most unbecoming of you, and it leads me to actually believe that it was not really your own words.
It is ironic—and I think perhaps this is the cause of some of my angst—that in a budget delivered yesterday, unacknowledged generally, talked down completely in Ms Le Couteur’s presentation now, not reflected in the motion but certainly in the speech, this government yesterday signalled in a way that no other government has before in the ACT its utter determination to deal with the very issues that are the subject of Ms Le Couteur’s motion. Perhaps that is the problem for Ms Le Couteur and the Greens today. They are worried about an appearance or a perception that perhaps the government is doing something and they do not actually like it because it might reflect on them.
It really is a pity, the day after a budget which includes $97 million of funding attributable directly to sustainable transport initiatives, there is no acknowledgement of the government’s commitment. There is just this great berating of the government’s lack of effort or interest in the subject—the day after this government delivered, through its budget, the most comprehensive, detailed, determined, committed effort at enhancing across the spectrum of transport initiatives, including for pedestrians, including for cyclists, and most particularly in relation to buses, the first steps, the building blocks. We did not overexaggerate it, we did not claim it was the panacea, we did not insist that it would deal with all of the issues that we need to deal with. I even announced yesterday that I foresaw the cabinet coming back next year and the year after and the year after with bids for at least another $200 million to build on the
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