Page 3568 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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on areas which are flagged for redesign. I hope that, in fact, it does look at the sustainable design options seriously, the design options which its own consultation, its own engineers and its own consultants are getting up. It needs to look at these design options and make them not options, but actually implement them.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Health and Minister for Industrial Relations) (5.51): I am very happy to stand here in relation to the Chief Minister’s portfolio area and do this on his behalf, as he is sick and has left the Assembly for the day. I should start by saying that the government will not be supporting this motion. We have an annual program for the rehabilitation of road pavements that need replacement due to wear and tear. Almost 3½ million square metres of road pavement are maintained every year.
As members of the Assembly would appreciate, if road pavements are not repaired when they are in poor condition, a range of other issues arise which can seriously compromise the safety of road users. Failing to maintain our transport infrastructure in a timely manner can also mean that more costly works are needed in order to rectify what will have become a much larger problem.
While the annual road condition surveys confirm that over 90 per cent of road pavements in the ACT are in good condition, some are in poor condition and are deteriorating. London Circuit, Northbourne Avenue and Bunda Street are all roads where the road pavement conditions have been assessed as poor and require attention to maintain driver safety and to manage increasing maintenance costs. Indeed, road rehabilitation works on Northbourne Avenue have been underway since 2006-07, when works on this road began at the intersection of Northbourne Avenue and the Barton Highway and headed south towards the city over subsequent years.
In 2009-10, some additional funds were made available through the federal roads to recovery program. The road pavement rehabilitation work on Bunda Street has been incorporated as part of the Bunda Street verge upgrade which has been planned in consultation with city businesses over the last few years, before going out to tender in 2009.
These projects are being developed with an understanding of various plans for the city. Ms Le Couteur’s suggestion that these projects have ignored various planning initiatives in the city is not true. Far from seeking to condemn the government, we would suggest that Ms Le Couteur amend her motion to one which actually praises the work being undertaken by the government in rehabilitating road pavements in the city, however unlikely that suggestion might be.
The Northbourne Avenue works have been underway for a number of years, long before the decision to undertake a feasibility study on public transport options on Northbourne Avenue, which is now occurring as part of the 2010-11 transport for Canberra program. The road pavement rehabilitation works on London Circuit most recently benefited from input from the Department of Land and Property Services, the department which is now responsible for developing the greater Canberra city plan.
While the pedestrian and cycling infrastructure plan for Civic is still to be finalised, the current works on Bunda Street do not preclude any of the possible options that
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