Page 2130 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
roads is worthy of discussion in the chamber and, given the recent heavy rains in March this year, we know that there will be increased burdens in maintaining our road networks.
But today’s MPI goes beyond one-off natural incidents like the March rains. It also seeks to highlight the government’s track record on our roads and where we believe the priority of government should be in order to be a good local government.
This government—ACT Labor—have never been good at providing Canberrans with the infrastructure that they need, and when it comes to roads this is particularly true. Nothing indicates this more than the Gungahlin Drive extension. The government have had a shocking record on the delivery of this road. I think it will stand as a legacy of this government’s priorities and this government’s ability to deliver projects on time and on budget.
The GDE stands as the iconic failure of ACT Labor—and there have been many. We can point to a lot of others, but the GDE does seem to stand above the rest in relation to incompetence and just the inability to get what should have been a fairly simple road project done. The term “GDE” has become synonymous with failure in infrastructure. We know that it was originally costed at $32 million for a four-lane road. ACT Labor promised in 2001 to build the road for $53 million to be completed by 2004. The road was downgraded to a two-lane road despite traffic studies showing this would be inadequate. We know that ACT public servants said it would be a good road for 22 hours a day—that is, not at peak hour.
We know what Mr Hargreaves had to say when he was minister. He said it would not need to be duplicated. He declared in 2008 that duplication “is not on the books at all”—and it was not; I think he was telling the truth. I actually think he was telling the truth there. It was only when the Liberals went out with their policy of duplicating it that the government decided that it might be a good idea to duplicate it. But that was not the plan when they finished. It was not the plan when they were doing it. John Hargreaves declared that duplication “is not on the books at all” and that any such plan would be five to 10 years away. I disagreed with that sentiment, but I believe he was telling the truth. So, if it had been completely up to ACT Labor, the people of Gungahlin would be waiting another five or six years on that timetable before they would see that road duplicated.
Simon Corbell tweeted on 11 August 2011, a decade into the project:
Roadwork on GDE expected to be completed by mid October, 2 and a half months ahead of schedule.
It was going to be 2½ months ahead of schedule, according to Mr Corbell—but of course that was a decade into the project. What was the schedule, I suppose, that they were expecting? How long were they expecting it to take, secretly, if the roadwork in October of 2011 was 2½ months ahead of schedule? They were planning on taking 11 years, and they almost did it, it seems.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video