Page 1055 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 2013
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Let us also not forget the fiasco around Bruce stadium. It cost the then Chief Minister her job because of the dodgy overnight financing and breaches of the Financial Management Act. It also led to the fiasco of grass being imported from Far North Queensland into a Canberra winter and then, not surprisingly, dying and having to be spray painted green to cover up for that absolute fiasco.
Then let us not forget the futsal slab, another fine example of public infrastructure that gets a lot of use as a futsal facility now! I think it has hosted more circuses than a Liberal Party preselection fiasco. It has had possibly more use as a car park than for what it was designed and for the amount that was spent on such a facility. They are just three examples—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR BARR: of the quality infrastructure provision that we saw under the previous government.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Doszpot): Members! Mr Hanson! Mr Smyth had relative quiet—relative quiet, I say—during his speech. So please give Mr Barr the same courtesy.
MR BARR: Good infrastructure planning in the territory stimulates productivity, prosperity and growth in our community. The benefits of good infrastructure planning in the territory are evident in the wide range of programs and projects that are currently being implemented by this government throughout the city. I look forward to outlining those examples in the next 12 minutes. Safety, reliability, security and an increase in public amenity, and also equity and fairness, are some of the important values that guide infrastructure planning in the territory—a vibrant city with great neighbourhoods, high quality services, a fair and safe territory, a healthy territory that is educated and skilled, a prosperous and sustainable territory. These are the government’s priorities in guiding our infrastructure planning.
Good infrastructure planning is about decision-making processes that give these values and priorities form and concrete expression. For this reason, good planning is inseparable from good governance. The governance of ACT infrastructure planning is achieved through robust flexible legislative arrangements and is supported by key strategies such as the ACT planning strategy and the transport for Canberra planning strategy, amongst others. Of course, they are annually updated in the territory’s infrastructure plan itself.
Whenever a decision is made on infrastructure it is subject to the practices of good government, including performance and conformance criteria such as value for money, return on investment, use of new technologies to ensure efficiency, meeting regulatory requirements and harmonising with national infrastructure reform agendas such as those led by the Council of Australian Governments.
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