Page 2921 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 29 June 2011
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particular, I note the Dame Pattie Menzies building in Dickson. It was only opened in 2007. I believe it is a 4½-star NABERS-rated building. So if transport options are improved, and they certainly need to be for many reasons, then this could be a very good building for the government to continue to own and use.
The government have just done a big, everything that we have got at present or everything new analysis. They have not looked at the actual options of different buildings. A triple bottom line analysis tool has just been released by the government for comment. Perhaps it will be used with the new building proposal. I think that would be great.
There has been a lot of emphasis on the cultural change from being co-located but, as I said when talking about the CMD, given that a new building will not be ready for six years surely these issues need to be—and hopefully they will be—addressed sooner. Again, if ownership is the key issue, there could be more options if there is more than one building potentially in the equation. In the public accounts committee, we questioned a number of these assumptions. The government has yet to respond to the committee’s interim report and I very much hope that we will see this soon.
I raised the issue of street lighting in my TAMS speech last night, but I would like to reiterate the problem. We have lack of lighting in our city. Even after the $2 million has been spent on city lighting, only 35 per cent of the city will meet the standards. This is dreadful, given the amount of work that is being done in other areas to make Canberra a safer place at night.
But one thing that I will note positively is that the government seem to have taken on board a complaint that they should not roll out small maintenance on infrastructure when there is larger infrastructure of the same area about to come on stream. This has been a total waste of resources, time, money and concrete, which is very greenhouse gas intensive. I am very glad to see that the city cycle loop is part of the work which will be done and is being integrated into the general CBD upgrade program.
Moving on to the LDA, there are a lot of LDA issues of interest to the Greens, but probably the most noteworthy is the Molonglo Valley development. We are still concerned that environmental concerns are not properly addressed. The river corridor, in particular, has many environmental attributes which we are keen to see preserved and enhanced. We were very pleased to hear recently that there has finally been a decision not to dam the river, and it is a great relief. We have spent the last four or five years raising this issue and hoping that the ecological issues will receive the focus they deserve over and above the land sale values.
Community groups are still concerned about a number of river corridor management issues, though the main issue seems to be that there are too many competing uses being squashed into the very small river corridor space—the biodiversity protection and enhancement, especially for the pink-tailed worm lizard; the need for habitat connectivity; recreational uses, cycling, horse riding; general recreation; as well as, of course, bushfire outer asset protection zones. I understand there are still consultations on the river park. I hope that these outstanding issues will be resolved.
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