Page 4214 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Minister, please, I am the chair. Minister, you can resume the floor. Please, if you can, stick to Mr Seselja’s amendment.
MR CORBELL: The government will not be supporting Mr Seselja’s amendment because the amendment is without any credibility. It is without any credibility because you have the shadow minister for transport saying it is too expensive to invest in public transport in this city and it is an unreasonable impost on Canberra households. That is what his shadow minister is saying, but the leader is prepared to stand up and say, “No, we’re very serious about looking at investing in light rail.” He himself has conceded that light rail is more expensive than other forms of technology. He knows it. His shadow minister thinks it is too expensive to run bus services, but he wants to look at light rail. They are adopting a hypocritical policy position and a policy position without any credibility.
Let me address the other criticisms made by Mr Seselja. He says that the government is not following through on its commitments. He is wrong. The government said before 2001 that it would look at and develop a feasibility study on light rail for the city. And that was delivered in 2004 through the Kellogg Brown and Root report—KBR—the public transport futures feasibility study. That was not a quick exercise; it took over a year, and it looked in detail at all the options around public transport provision for the city. It made certain conclusions about the costs and benefits of different technologies. The government concluded out of that study that it could not justify an investment on a city-wide light rail project because it was not as cost efficient as alternatives such as bus rapid transit. That is why the government made the investment that it made in bus rapid transit, including in the Belconnen to city busway. Guess what, Mr Assistant Speaker? Most of that busway has now been built.
Mr Seselja again misleads the community when he makes the claim that the government spent money on a feasibility study for a busway project that came to nothing. In fact, most of that busway project has now been built. It is being built right now through the new ANU exchange area. There is a dedicated busway through that area connecting to Barry Drive. The government has funded in the most recent budget the development of a dedicated busway along Barry Drive. The government has invested in a new bus station in the Belconnen town centre. It has completely redeveloped the Belconnen bus interchange to make a series of community bus stations, including integrating public transport with the major shopping centre in Belconnen, and it has provided improved bus priority along Belconnen Way. These were all measures that were identified in the bus rapid transit study, the Belconnen to city busway study, commissioned by the government previously and they have been built and implemented.
Mr Seselja also criticises the government in his amendment by claiming that the government is putting an additional financial impost on redevelopment along those public transport corridors when, in fact, nothing could be further from the case. He knows—he is being disingenuous to say otherwise—that the changes to the lease variation charge include remission to encourage development along public transport corridors, along other major transport corridors and around centres and that those remission policies are currently being implemented. So, once again, he is wrong and he misleads the community again when he makes the claim to the contrary.
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