Page 3578 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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into this. We have put an enormous consultation process into this. I did the consultation process around the Tharwa Drive issue and I got bagged because it did not happen quickly enough. I got bagged mercilessly about the airport road, and it is a dream to go to the airport now on that road. It is a dream. And I got bagged out. Why? For having the temerity to make it difficult for people to get to the airport while we were doing some work.
There should be recognition in here. There should not be: “This government is condemned for not doing something.” If you wish to say, “We are encouraging the government to do something more than that or to take a different tack,” then I do not have a problem with that. I welcome it, in fact, because it is constructive. I see this sort of stuff “condemns the government for this, that and the other”. The Greens say:
…condemns the ACT Government for wasting public money on rehabilitation road pavement, and rebuilding footpaths and kerbs…
Tell that to the people in my street. Tell that to the people in Gaunson Crescent where we have to go and grind down the footpaths and replace the footpaths because people are tripping over them and hurting themselves. Tell that to the people outside the schools where we are trying to rehabilitate the pavement.
When I was the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services some 2½ or three years ago, I asked TAMS to tell me how much in the way of potholes they fixed in a year and to give me something graphic to describe how much they did. The hole was the equivalent of a full-sized Olympic swimming pool. That is about the size in cubic metreage of the holes that they fill in Canberra in a year.
To suggest that we are wasting public money on that sort of rehabilitation, I am sorry, I have to reject that. I cannot support this. There is a lot of sentiment behind this that I have sympathy with. If you want to condemn us for not doing something, feel free. Whilst I see a condemnation of the government for doing something, I am sorry but this is not only wrong, it is an insult to each and every person that works in Roads ACT for the forethought and the thinking that they put into things.
When the bridges at the Glenloch interchange went in, we had to take the original two out and we had to implode some bridges there. The amount of consultation, the amount of forethought and the amount of technical advice that we got over that particular issue were phenomenal. It was about three months longer than I would have expected, and I was the minister at the time. I am sorry, I cannot support either the motion or the amendment while ever they contain the words “condemns the government” for doing something. I find it a personal insult.
Question put:
That Mr Coe’s amendment be agreed to.
The Assembly voted—
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