Page 3753 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 29 October 2014
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Chief Minister, how will a light rail system between Gungahlin and the city help residents of Tuggeranong, Woden, Weston Creek, the inner south or Belconnen get around this city easily?
MS GALLAGHER: I think Mr Hanson has the answer in the words I used in answer to that question, which were “a modern transport system”. A modern transport system includes a whole range of different components, light rail being one of them, an improved ACTION network being another and an improved road network being another. If you look at some of the areas where we have had massive road improvement in the last 10 to five years, a lot of that investment has been in roads that supported the south side of Canberra and the access of the south side of Canberra to the north side of Canberra, including the Gungahlin Drive extension, including the duplication of the Monaro Highway, including the improvements on Parkes Way. They were the comments I was making.
Capital metro forms a component of a modern transport network or a modern transport system across the city. I have lived in this place long enough to remember, when Tuggeranong was being built, the cries and claims from areas in other parts of Canberra which thought that Tuggeranong was getting all the infrastructure spend. Indeed, Tuggeranong is well served by a very good road network in and out of Tuggeranong.
I would prefer not to play these issues on a north versus south scenario. I do not think we played in other areas where we have had big spends on infrastructure, particularly roads. We have not said that one particular infrastructure is only going to benefit one part of Canberra and therefore the other parts of Canberra are missing out. It is not the way that we have built this city, it is not the way that infrastructure is built in any other city, and it is not the way that capital metro should be seen.
Capital metro will offer a solution to people wanting to use public transport as commuters from the north into Canberra and back again. Then there are a range of other alternatives which create a modern transport system. Any city in the world has a system like that where there are different alternatives, different types of transport that encourage easy movement around the city. That is one thing that Canberra does well on, and we are going to improve upon it.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: Minister, why is the government not waiting until the city is much bigger and can sustain a light rail system rather than building the first stage now when it is not viable?
MS GALLAGHER: I think we have there the approach from the Canberra Liberals: wait until people are sitting for one hour in traffic from Gungahlin into Civic before you actually start planning. Anyone who knows how to plan major infrastructure like this knows that this is about having a light rail system in place in the 2020-21 financial year. The planning has to start now. That is what we are doing.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
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