Page 1243 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2015
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Members interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Dr Bourke): Order!
MR COE: This is quite extraordinary. The Chief Minister—
Mr Barr: He’s not this aggressive at the Gungahlin Community Council. He’s quite timid there, apparently.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Coe, sit down. Stop the clock.
Government members interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Barr, Mr Corbell, come to order.
MR COE: I think you will find—
Members interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Order!
MR COE: The Chief Minister—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Order! Sit down. I had not given you the call.
MR COE: I do apologise.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Coe.
MR COE: Thank you; I am up. Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Chief Minister says that perhaps I am not this strident at the Gungahlin Community Council. In fact, I hit it head-on at the meeting last month and said, “I know a lot of you are not going to like it, but of course, as you well know, I am opposed to the light rail project.” And we stand by that—of course we stand by that.
We have one message for all of Canberra, and that is that we will invest in the entire city. We will invest in bus infrastructure across Canberra. We will invest in urban centres across Canberra. We will do grass mowing. We will do graffiti removal. We will do pothole repairs. We will do footpath repairs across Canberra. Unlike the government, which seems to pick winners and to pick isolated parts of Canberra, we back the entire city, Mr Assistant Speaker.
It is for that reason, when we have a Minister for Urban Renewal, that we actually have a minister for pet projects. It is a shame. It is a shame that this government is pitting parts of Canberra against other parts of Canberra by investing $783 million in one route when only three per cent of Canberra’s population will live within walking distance of a tram stop. In fact, even in Gungahlin, you only have 16 per cent of the population within walking distance of a tram stop. So there are real concerns with this project.
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