Page 195 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 11 February 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
government’s proposal to Infrastructure Australia said. It said light rail will deliver $2.30 per dollar invested, buses will deliver $4.80 per dollar invested, “But we’d like you to go with light rail.” Well, not surprisingly, Infrastructure Australia said it is hard to justify putting money in light rail when buses are going to deliver double the economic return. And that is when it was $2.40 or $2.30. Now the BCR is down to $1.20, and even that has some fanciful figures in it. We are down to $1.20.
Minister Corbell does not like this because he sees the tram as his little baby—his little baby going at 30 kilometres an hour past the logging of the 521 trees that will have been murdered. I am sure in a past life Mr Rattenbury would have been chaining himself to those 521 eucalyptus elata, but not today. Mr Rattenbury is going to be there with the steel chainsaw, chopping them down. It is absolutely extraordinary. You have Mr Rattenbury advocating for the chopping down of 521 trees along the Northbourne median. The hypocrisy here is pretty special. If this was in Tasmania, you would have 500 Greens chaining themselves to these very trees. In a past life, the planning activist opposition shadow minister, Mr Corbell, would have been at the community meetings saying, “Save our open space. Save our open space.” But here he is, 15 years on, with the steel chainsaw, chopping down the eucalyptus elata and taking pleasure out of it.
Mr Corbell: Were you in high school then?
MR COE: In actual fact, I was in high school at the time.
Mr Corbell: You need to live a little bit more, Alistair.
MR COE: It is interesting that in those 15 years I think my life has changed somewhat more than Mr Corbell’s. The only thing that has not changed is the hypocrisy of those opposite. The hypocrisy of those opposite is simply extraordinary. In times gone by we had Minister Corbell and Minister Hargreaves talking about how bad light rail was and how busways were the way forward. Busways were the only viable alternative in the ACT. Here is Mr Corbell a few years on talking about light rail as being the great saviour.
I wonder whether it is linked to Mr Corbell’s vote and the fact that he realises this is his twilight term in the Assembly and he is contemplating what will be his legacy: perhaps a binding contract to lock a generation of Canberrans into a $100 million annual availability payment! It is a shame that legacy will come at the expense of so many forgone opportunities because of the arrogance and determination of Minister Corbell.
It is interesting to discuss in this place the project and light rail because suddenly everyone opposite is starting to take credit for light rail. “It’s all because of me that we’re getting light rail. It’s all because of me that this project’s happening.” Well, I am afraid it is not. It is not because of any of you; it is because of the man on the crossbench, and we all know that. We all know that just after the 2012 election there was Mr Rattenbury—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Dr Bourke): A point of order, Mr Corbell.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video