Page 3242 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 16 August 2011
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Ms Hunter: Mr Speaker, I had asked about the numbers of staff who have actually been able to access supervision and critical briefing in that time. I would like the minister to get to that part of the question.
MR SPEAKER: Minister, on the point of order, would you like to add anything else?
MS BURCH: I was halfway through my time there; I am quite happy to take that on notice and come back with the absolute details.
MR SPEAKER: Supplementary, Mr Coe.
MR COE: Minister, given that you seem hazy on the contents of the Oakton report, have you actually read it and will you table it in the Assembly by close of business today?
MS BURCH: I will not be intending to table it. It has informed the budget considerations for the 2010-11 budget.
Transport—freight
MS BRESNAN: My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development and concerns freight transport in the ACT. Minister, one of the important ways to reduce overall transport emissions is to make freight transport more sustainable. What are you doing to improve opportunities for rail freight in the ACT, particularly at existing rail sites, so that we do not rely so heavily on road freight?
MR CORBELL: I thank Ms Bresnan for the question. It is, in the government’s view, desirable that there be more freight movements occur by rail. Rail is a more sustainable transport mode and is able to take large loads off roads and reduce the hazards associated with interstate, long-haul road freight movements. That said, there is very little that the ACT government can do to assist with that change. It is very much a business decision that will be made by individual freight companies and the people who require freight to be moved.
MR SPEAKER: Supplementary, Ms Bresnan.
MS BRESNAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, will the government be pursuing an intermodal freight terminal in the ACT which would facilitate the transfer of freight from rail to road and therefore promote more sustainable freight?
MR CORBELL: I do not think that developing an intermodal freight terminal will do much to assist freight movements by rail if there is less than one freight movement a day from the Canberra railway station, Mr Speaker. As I said, these are matters that are overwhelmingly driven by commercial decisions by those people responsible for moving freight around the country.
Indeed, the levers available to the ACT government are very limited in this regard. Obviously, developments at a national transport policy level involving the
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