Page 2486 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 13 August 2014
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It is interesting that Mr Corbell has made no reference in any documentation that I have seen to the 2003 KBR study with regard to transport options for Canberra. And I am not surprised he does not, because the study that this Labor government commissioned in 2003 does not support what they are doing. They spent that $200,000 or so on the 2003 study, and it does not support going ahead with light rail, and it certainly does not support the staging of a light rail network which this government has proposed.
When it comes to spending taxpayers’ money I do not think it is good enough for Minister Corbell to come in here and say it is not economic, it is not financial; it is social. Spending up to $1 billion of taxpayers’ money on a feel-good project for Simon Corbell does not cut it. It simply does not cut it. It is irresponsible, it is irrational and it is wrong. Unfortunately, it is the people of Canberra, the taxpayers of Canberra, who are going to be paying as a result of Minister Corbell’s commitment to this project.
There are significant concerns about every single aspect of the light rail project. I have listed some of them in paragraph (1)(c). Of course, there is the cost of construction, including the relocation of utilities. We still do not know whether the relocation of utilities is included in the $614 million cost. There is still significant doubt about the viability of the patronage projections. We still do not know what the operational expenses are. The Centre for International Economics said that there are serious risks to the territory. Of course, the population within walking distance is minimal, and the impact on the bus system is unknown.
So, for all these reasons, Madam Assistant Speaker, the opposition is calling on the ACT government to delay the light rail project until a time in Canberra’s development when the population and, importantly, the population density can sustain such a system. (Time expired.)
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (4.11): The government will not, of course, be supporting this motion today. We will not be supporting it because, despite the attempts by Mr Coe to personalise the debate, to make it all about me, it is not about me; it is about Canberra. It is about Canberra; it is about the future of our city; it is about better, sustainable, efficient rapid transit for the future of our city.
We have heard some ludicrous claims from the opposition today, and I am going to spend some time detailing those issues. The most extraordinary claim is that the only people who benefit from improvements in public transport are the public transport users. This is the myth, the fallacy, that we hear from Mr Coe again and again. Mr Coe would know—or should know, if he were to be taken seriously as a shadow minister for transport—that if you encourage more people to use public transport and fewer people to use their cars, that is going to improve the operation of the transport network as a whole.
Mr Coe interjecting—
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