Page 3732 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 29 October 2014
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large bridges to cross the Murrumbidgee River. There will need to be all the other necessary infrastructure for providing suburbs that go with that sort of urban development.
Compare that to providing an increased range of housing types in inner areas as a result of providing enhanced transport options, and you start to see that, even though there is great concern about the cost of light rail, it stacks up very well when one starts to compare it to the considerable infrastructure costs that would be required to spread our city even further across the river, in the south-west corner of the territory.
Dr Bourke picked up some other important notions. I note in particular that he made reference to Monash drive, which I have certainly strongly advocated against in the past. It was put onto the plans as part of planning for Gungahlin in the late 1980s. Anyone who would support the development of Monash drive really is taking a backward-looking approach to urban development.
First of all, who would want to build a motorway through that sort of area of nature reserve? There are significant areas of yellow box/red gum grassy woodland that have been worked on considerably by volunteers over the years in order to restore the ecological values of those areas. They are considered to be one of the prime recreational areas in this city.
We really can do better than building motorways through those parts of our city. People talk about this city being the bush capital. It is the great cliche perhaps regarding this city, but it is areas like the Mount Ainslie-Mount Majura nature reserve that really make it so. I think we can do a lot better for the future of this city than contemplate the construction of a road such as Monash drive.
Doing things like providing light rail and getting ahead of that curve will eliminate the need for a road such as that. To build such a road really would be a retrograde step. I particularly welcome the fact that Dr Bourke made that point, because it is one of the alternatives. It would be interesting to know whether the Canberra Liberals support the construction of Monash drive, because if we do not provide alternatives such as light rail then something like Monash drive would enter the public debate as a necessary solution in some people’s minds. It would be interesting to know whether the Canberra Liberal Party supports the construction of Monash drive. I think they should be honest about whether they do see that as part of Canberra’s transport future.
Certainly, the issues of rat running through parts of inner north Canberra and Belconnen suburbs, identified by Dr Bourke in his motion, are very real. As the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, with responsibility for issues relating to traffic in suburban areas, I get many requests on issues—people expressing concern to me about this problem and seeking more traffic calming measures.
These are the sorts of things our residents are facing. Again, all of these things have costs. The Canberra Liberals come in here and say, “This is too expensive,” but there are other costs if we do not do this—things like needing to put traffic calming into urban environments and suburban streets where families are living and where children are wanting to play in the front yard or cycle to school.
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