Page 2498 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 13 August 2014
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Mr Rattenbury talks about an enduring solution that will come about as a result of light rail. If he was so committed and was the real deal as a Green, how could he support the release of more land in Moncrieff? How could he support the release of land in Denman and in Coombs and in Lawson? If he was the real deal, he would not support those. If he wanted an enduring solution, he would say, “No more greenfields development. You’ve got to build higher density along the tram route and along transit corridors.” But he is not the real deal; he wants a legacy project, and he thinks light rail is going to be that.
If he was the real deal and he genuinely wanted a more sustainable mode of transport, if he genuinely believed in peak oil, if he genuinely believed that cars are bad for Canberra and bad for our environment, he would block off a lane of Northbourne Avenue and put buses down it. It would not cost a cent to have the existing bus network going straight down Northbourne and with the three lanes going down to two. I would not support that, but if he was the real deal as a Green, he would not support a billion dollars and millions of tonnes of embedded carbon on a light rail project. He would simply say, “Let’s use the existing infrastructure, block off a lane and say buses have to go down that.” But he is not the real deal; he wants a legacy project.
I would not support for one minute the cutting off of a lane on Northbourne to make way for bus rapid transit. But if Mr Rattenbury was true to his conviction, he would not support the expenditure of a billion dollars and the embedded carbon and the electricity consumption of a light rail network when you could simply at no cost whatsoever put a bus lane down Northbourne Avenue and reduce cars down to two lanes. As I said, I do not support that, but I am very surprised that Mr Rattenbury does not.
It is interesting that Dr Bourke should rip into the Productivity Commission and rip into others. Very little needs to be said about that. The Centre for International Economics used open-source information, and so based on the publicly accessible information, the project does not stack up and it is a risk to the territory. Infrastructure Australia says, “Based on what we’ve seen, it doesn’t stack up.” The Productivity Commission says, “Based on what we’ve seen, it doesn’t stack up.”
Somehow, it is wrong for the Productivity Commission to say the government has not published enough information to warrant going ahead with light rail. The very point that Dr Bourke makes—that the Productivity Commission should have sought more information from the government and should have sought clarity—is, in fact, the very point the Productivity Commission is trying to make—that is, the government has not made the case for light rail.
Yet here in the Assembly today we have Minister Corbell once again over-reaching, once again saying capital metro is going to be great for Canberra, “We need it, there’s no other option.” Mr Rattenbury is there saying, “This is superb. Bring it on.” But then we have the Chief Minister saying, “Oh, well, look, we haven’t made a final decision yet. You know, sit tight. We’ll let you know in October.” Which is it? Is it the Minister for Capital Metro or is it the Chief Minister? Because the Chief Minister says they have not made a decision, yet we have a Minister for Capital Metro who regularly over-reaches when it comes to the delivery of light rail. He regularly says
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