Page 33 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Beneficiaries include the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society, the Australian Business Academy, Arthritis ACT, Amaroo School, AIDS Action Council, AST golf day, ACT women’s under-21 volleyball, ACT College of Midwives, Friends of the Albert Hall, Ginninderra Rats Basketball Club, Girls on the Move, Give Me 5 for Kids, Hall Bushrangers rugby group, Matildas Eightball, Marist College, the Lions Club, Lifeline and Cerebral Palsy Alliance ACT. They are on record as saying that without the contributions of clubs they would not have their new facilities today.
Mr Smyth: You have got to be relevant.
MS BURCH: It is relevant. It is an absolute known fact that the party owns the Labor Club, but I am absolutely distinct in my role as a regulator, and community clubs here play a very important part.
The AEC shows donations to the Liberal Party from the Leagues Clubs of Australia, the Crown Casino, RSL clubs and TABCORP. You are happy to take money from clubs. Indeed, Mr Doszpot is happy to hold a fundraiser at a club; so, clearly, there is no problem with you getting a benefit from our community clubs.
Mr Hanson also then spoke about Tharwa Drive and called it a debacle. The community of south Tuggeranong will now have access to a great facility. Nearly $18 million has been invested in a fire and rescue station down in south Tuggeranong. It was a week of absolute inconvenience. Make no mistake; there was an inconvenience around that road closure. But for decades, for years to come now, there will be security for that community. The benefit for that community is significant.
Mr Smyth and Andrew Wall were at the Tuggeranong Community Council last week when I was there with Mr Gentleman. If he is going to interpret people’s comments there as bullying the TCC, that is just extraordinary. It is like the last time he tried to come here and say I was trying to bully the TCC.
The Tuggeranong Community Council supported the closure, the method of closure. Mr Doverty from ESA was at the TCC and spoke at length around the reasoning behind it. No-one is arguing that the fire and rescue station at south Tuggeranong is not of great benefit. No-one is arguing that it does not need to be connected to services. When we started, the original intention—Mr Corbell may know this; I know that Roads ACT have had talks about this—was to bore through that.
Mr Smyth and Mr Wall were sitting in that room with Mr Doverty, who went to great lengths to explain that that was the original intention. But when they started that boring, geotechnical advice said it would not provide safety or an accurate path through to the station. Here we were, very close to the end of the year, with a brand new ESA fire and rescue station that needed access to services. We put the proposal: we cannot bore underneath. We have to cut through the road. This is nearly a three-by-three metre deep ditch. This is not a small ditch. This is a large ditch.
We had two choices: to cut through in one go, which would have meant closing the road absolutely, or to do half road by half road. The first option had a seven to 10-
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video