Page 1741 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 13 May 2015

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anything he can to stop this project going ahead. This is just another example of where he wants the government to give up any commercial advantage it might have by putting out in the first place what it expects.

I will be supporting Mr Corbell’s amendment today. In many parts it simply reframes Mr Coe’s motion. In the first part it picks up the factual statements that Mr Coe has made and it then indicates that the government will provide information at the appropriate time. This has been the approach of the government so far. I believe the government has been highly transparent. Mr Corbell spoke about the public release of the business case and how unusual that is. I certainly congratulate Mr Corbell on undertaking such a transparent approach on a document like that. It is important that we are as up-front as possible with the community without giving away the commercial advantage that the government might have. The flipside of that is that it does allow determined opponents more opportunities to run down the project, which we have clearly seen.

I felt there was a level of internal inconsistency in Mr Coe’s motion, because in paragraph (1)(e) he talks about the government being required to make periodic payments over a 20-year period after light rail is constructed—the annual availability payment. He goes on to say that the government has continuously refused to detail the timing of the availability payment. It does seem to be a somewhat inconsistent approach, in that the government has been perfectly up-front that there will be an availability payment over 20 years. Mr Coe talked about dates in his speech today, and yet he made that observation in his motion. Perhaps I have misunderstood it but it does seem to me to be internally inconsistent.

I will be supporting Mr Corbell’s amendment. It makes it quite clear that the government will make the information available—once it is available. You cannot give something you do not have. That is, I think, the point of Mr Corbell’s amendment—that once the information is available it will be provided.

I will conclude by reiterating the sum of my earlier speech today when we discussed light rail—that it is an excellent project for our city. As a Green, I strongly believe in prioritising public transport, infrastructure that uses renewable energy, livable and sustainable cities, and policies that plan for the future. This project helps to achieve all of these.

Question put:

That the amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

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