Page 3536 - Week 08 - Thursday, 18 August 2011
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That is why we need an independent process. That is why we need an infrastructure commissioner. That is why our policy of “infrastructure Canberra” is about planning for not just the short term but also the medium term and the long term. It is about getting the experts to inform the plan. It is not about throwing together an infrastructure plan by asking each agency, “What are you doing in your capital works budget?” and then throwing that together in an incomprehensible, shoddy document. It is about going to the experts, getting the board of industry and experts, and getting the infrastructure commissioner to assist the government in its planning and then in how it is going to deliver. It is about making those structural reforms that are so needed.
Wouldn’t the people of Gungahlin have benefited if these kinds of structural reforms had been made a few years ago, if the government had made good decisions instead of poor ones? And we know that there is going to be pressure in other areas. It is not just going to be in Gungahlin; there will be other parts of Gungahlin as Gungahlin grows.
What of Molonglo? Molonglo valley will put pressure on our arterial roads. We know that the Greens want to limit the number of roads going in there and limit them to one lane. We vehemently disagree with that approach. That has hurt the people of Gungahlin, and we will not stand for it. We will not support that kind of approach. There will need to be road upgrades. There will be more pressure put on the Tuggeranong Parkway. There will be more pressure put on Parkes Way.
And if we look out to the east, the pressure on the Monaro Highway is building. It is building. The Majura parkway, once built, will certainly be an improvement not just for freight but for people travelling particularly between Gungahlin and north Canberra and places like Fyshwick and other parts of the city. And there will be growing pressure as we see growth over the border as well, as we see Googong going ahead in future years. Anyone who travels on the Monaro Highway knows that there is going to be pressure in coming years. There already is pressure on the Monaro Highway, but as that eastern corridor grows, as we see jobs in that corridor and as we see more people living over the border, those pressures will grow. What we need to be doing is now planning for those upgrades, not waiting for five or 10 years, when the people of Tuggeranong who use the Monaro Highway or who use Tuggeranong Parkway to get to work suffer the same fate as people who now use the GDE to get to work. That is what we want to avoid, and that is why we have got a plan to do it. That is critical.
This government has no credibility now when it comes to the timely delivery of roads infrastructure. It has no credibility. It will forever be known as the government of the GDE, the government that could not deliver, the government that chose not to deliver: the government that is going to deliver a road seven years late and $150 million over budget and then has the hide to tell us—Simon Corbell has the hide to tell us—that it is going to deliver it ahead of time.
We all saw the tweet from Mr Corbell. He said that the GDE is going to be delivered ahead of time. That is news to my kids, who were born after it was promised to be delivered in 2004. That would be news to the people of Gungahlin, who have been
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