Page 2841 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 September 2014
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Although there is a lovely chart on page 123 about what is going to happen, the government are already walking away from it as well. We now know they are not going to progress the convention centre because they are going for light rail. They are not going to progress the Civic stadium because they are going for light rail. He called it the Civic pool in question time, so I wonder if the aquatic centre is off the agenda and it is just a pool, the Civic pool.
What about projects underway and project delivery? What about the Constitution Avenue upgrade? Now there is an interesting thing! Mr Rattenbury brings up Constitution Avenue and the option of running capital metro down Constitution Avenue. Wouldn’t you have thought they might have thought about that before they rebuilt Constitution Avenue, a project which is underway now? There is good planning from the government, which has got good intentions for Civic. “We are going to rebuild Constitution Avenue, and then, when we work out what to do with capital metro, we might rebuild Constitution Avenue and lay capital metro down the middle.” Wouldn’t you have thought they would be doing it now?
This is not about capital metro; this is about the government and the $600 million piece of infrastructure that keeps them there, that they pay Mr Rattenbury. Let us face it: that is what has happened. This is about keeping Labor in office, not about building a city of the future. That is a shame.
We now know that, having walked away without delivering one iota of the City Hill concept for the future, they are already backpedalling on the city plan. The people have expressed that they want a vibrant city. It is in spite of the government, not because of the government, that this is happening. New Acton happened because of the courage of some private sector developers to get on with the job in the absence of a government that had any interest in the CBD. Braddon is happening because of private developers who got on with it, and at times were fighting the government against what the government wanted. We can see the pop-ups, we can see the Braddon traders, and we can see things happening because of people, not because of the government.
Mr Rattenbury also talked about the Canberra Centre. If you notice it, near Target it is open. I insisted that be left open so the tram could eventually come through there. Bunda Street there is open, with shops facing onto the street, because we wanted active shop frontage with a view to drawing people back to Garema Place. So we had these areas people could walk through that would lead them to the city heart, which is Garema Place.
The government have done nothing to make that happen. They are willing to quote all these numbers and things again. It is all about inputs for them. Have they achieved the purpose? No, they have not. That is why this motion is important. That is why this discussion is important. That is why Mr Coe’s motion should be supported. And this amendment should be defeated, because the amendment is the mediocre “do the same” game from the Labor Party. (Time expired.)
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