Page 2223 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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negative costs that arise from planning our city for automobile travel at the expense of public transport. Increased pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, oil dependence, social exclusion, impacts on health, traffic congestion and urban sprawl are all serious, long-term costs that we cannot overlook. Applying dollar figures to these burdens puts the cost in the billions.
Cars are also expensive to run. By planning a city that expects and relies on car travel, the ACT government locks Canberrans into car ownership and into paying the ongoing costs. The approximate average time that a resident of Canberra has to work for in order to pay for their car is 550 hours a year, or 1½ hours every single day. Families in outer suburbs already suffer the most cost-of-living pressures, and locking Canberrans into car reliance, particularly as oil prices rise, will cause significant economic stress.
The arguments I have outlined today are not just the belief of the Greens. You will find sustainable transport planning experts all over the world who back up this view. You will find many in the Canberra community who argue the same as us—people who are concerned about their own transport options as well as the future of our city. This includes Light Rail ACT, who have recently talked about this topic, as well as Paul Mees and other transport experts.
Perhaps the most damning fact is the revelation that the government has not even done any analysis of the benefits of building new, quality public transport links for the people of Gungahlin compared to building a freeway. It has just gone straight for the 40-year-old freeway option.
My motion calls on the government to halt funding to Majura parkway until an independent expert in sustainable transport planning has assessed a variety of issues such as the benefits of building public transport instead of the freeway; the ongoing impacts of a new freeway on Canberra; and the impacts on our modal shift targets and greenhouse gas targets. This is quite different from an EIS or engineering study. It will examine the decision to actually build a freeway and whether it is the right solution. At the moment we are just getting hollow justifications from the government and no scrutiny from the Liberal Party.
The Greens will not support the government’s motion, which simply repeats the same spurious arguments, or the Liberals’ motion, which unthinkingly demands support for one of the biggest and most consequential projects for Canberra’s transport planning. Over $144 million of taxpayers’ money is being spent with no scrutiny.
Instead we ask that you agree to our reasonable asks to prioritise public transport solutions and to have a proper analysis done on this project from an independent sustainable transport planner as well as to provide other relevant data. A government and an Assembly that are committed to proper scrutiny and to delivering the best outcomes for Canberra now and into the future should not have any problem agreeing to these asks.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services and Minister
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