Page 4215 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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Those are the facts around the amendment proposed by Mr Seselja. He is wrong. He is wrong on lease variation charge. He is wrong on the feasibility studies the government has undertaken. He is wrong on the Belconnen to city busway. He is wrong and is adopting a hypocritical policy position when he says he is interested in investing in light rail when his shadow minister for transport thinks that buses cost too much already and he does not want to see any more impost on Canberra households.
We look forward to Mr Coe proposing to his Liberal colleagues that they should cut funding to ACTION because he believes it already costs too much. We look forward to how he is going to reduce the cost of running ACTION without reducing services and without impacting on the delivery of services to the Canberra community. We look forward to that, Mr Seselja. Cannot wait for that one. Should be an election winner for you!
Mr Seselja’s amendment has no credibility. It is clear they do not know what they are talking about when it comes to public transport policy. They cannot even reconcile the differences between themselves on the issue. How can they seriously suggest they have got a clear policy agenda for the future?
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (4.15): I have to agree with Mr Corbell’s statement about Mr Seselja and hypocriticalness as far as rail goes, but I am not sure that it does not also apply to the Labor Party. Neither party have been prepared to support Ms Bresnan’s entirely sensible motion. I particularly point out the first part of her motion, which notes the considerable opportunities for rail services in the ACT, including light rail, high speed rail, rail freight and regional rail. What is there in there, gentlemen, to not support?
It is obviously the case that we have different ideas about how we might go about implementing rail projects, but to have the Liberal and the Labor parties both stand up and say, in effect, “We love rail,” but refuse to support anything of Ms Bresnan’s motion is simply unbelievable. I guess the word Mr Corbell used, “hypocritical”, is accurate. Given their stated positions on this, I really cannot understand how they are not supporting Ms Bresnan’s motion.
Mr Corbell said that the Greens always want to do everything now or in the past. The Greens certainly see the urgency of this issue, and I would like to bring both sides of the house back to the debate. Light rail was part of Walter Burley Griffin’s original plans, but the first time that I personally ever got involved in the light rail dispute was in the early 1990s. Gungahlin was a new town centre then and there was a developer, Mr Winnel, who wanted to put light rail out to Gungahlin. From memory, he said that he would finance this himself, such would be the increase in land value of doing this. I admit that it was a new government at the time—I think it was shortly after self-government—but this visionary project was not supported by the Labor government. The Greens did not exist at that time as a political party in the ACT, but the Greens’ idea clearly would have saved a lot of money. It would have saved an awful lot of time, because we would not be waiting up and down Northbourne Avenue. The whole debate about the Gungahlin Drive extension would not have occurred because there would have been good public transport to Gungahlin. The Greens are right in saying
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