Page 2795 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
should be funded. They have been there for nine years. The government is not getting anywhere with it. They really have to deliver a plan some time soon on how they will deliver this key road.
For years, they neglected the roads around the airport—absolutely years. And we see the road network there coming together now, largely through the effort of the Canberra Airport Group who have managed that program quite well and have done very well with the delivery of that project. Perhaps we should outsource all the road management in the ACT to the Canberra Airport Group. They seem to be better at it than the Chief Minister is. But we do have to have some answers, particularly about Majura parkway, as the population of Gungahlin grows. The needs and requirements will be there. The Chief Minister really does have to answer that question.
It is also interesting, of course, that the fifth budget paper disappeared. The initiatives are in budget paper 3.
Mrs Dunne: It is because they could not spell it.
MR SMYTH: As Mrs Dunne points out, they could not spell “infrastructure”. They had “infastucture”. In the index I think it is spelt differently again. It is quite interesting that you can misspell “infrastructure” two or three ways in the space of two or three pages in a document. The lack of attention to detail really is evident in the way that the Chief Minister is not across his portfolio.
It brings me to the next area that I would like to speak about, which is the Pialligo quarry. There are two quarries at Pialligo. This is a matter that has been ongoing over a number of years. One of the quarries is quite active. I am not sure of the status of the other one. But it is the site for all of that honeysuckle stone, the honey-coloured stone that we see around Canberra in so many retaining walls and buildings, that is the Canberra stone. This is the site for it. If you want to do earthworks, if you want to do retaining walls, if you want to do bridges and anything else that you need with this sort of stone, this is where it comes from.
There has been an ongoing issue over a number of years and it is clear that the Chief Minister, as Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, had no idea of the history of the matter, given his answer in estimates this year. There are concerns about the delay in dealing with the issue relating to these commercial activities, particularly concerns about the inability of at least one of the quarry operators to get any sense out of his dealings with the ACT government departments and agencies. I know Mr Coe has written to the government on this matter and I have raised it with the Chief Minister’s office.
In particular, I am very concerned with the Chief Minister’s comment that the government could proceed unilaterally with this matter if no responses were received. And it is not really a correct representation of the situation for at least one of the quarries involved.
I noted a response to me from the office of the Chief Minister of 14 April this year in relation to one of the quarries. (Second speaking period taken.) That response was quite clear. I read from the Chief Minister’s chief of staff:
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video