Page 1952 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 June 2015
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MR RATTENBURY: Once again, Mr Coe cannot wait for his opportunity. He needs to shout across the chamber when someone starts questioning the flimsy details of his policy.
We should remember that the $50 million of capital metro funding that the Liberal Party would transfer to buses and drivers is only a few years of funding. Bus network funding needs to be recurrent; otherwise it will just be cut in a couple of years. I would like the Liberal Party to commit to continuing the extra $50 million for network services beyond the life of the Capital Metro Agency and then explain how that is different from the availability payment that is proposed.
What I invite Mr Coe to do, and I will be happy to give him the leave, is to table the full costings and details of his proposal. He has talked about leasing the buses rather than purchasing them, because presumably he wants to keep the up-front capital cost off the budget books in some way. Let us see costing details for the benefits of leasing versus purchasing and look at the long-term availability on that. Or, if he is leasing them, is it because it is actually only the short term and he intends to get rid of them after a couple of years? I have talked on this issue of where they will be stored. I would be quite happy to give leave for Mr Coe to table a full set of costings in this place today to back up the flimsy press release that was issued on Monday without any sort of detail. Compare that to the fact that the government has put the full business case for capital metro on the table.
I notice that there is still no policy from the Liberal Party on dealing more broadly with congestion issues in places like Northbourne Avenue, and there is no corridor-based rapid transit mode. If they refuse to accept light rail, will the Liberal Party’s alternative be to commit to bus rapid transit? I look forward to seeing that policy, if it is provided. It is, however, an inferior solution to light rail. Light rail brings considerably more benefits than bus rapid transit and it avoids several problems. The Liberal Party will also need to explain several details of this policy, such as where the buses will run, whether they will pave the entire median strip of Northbourne Avenue for the buses to travel on and, if so, what will happen to the trees on the median strip.
Perhaps the most pertinent point of all this is that the money that the Liberal Party would apparently take from capital metro and put into other initiatives will not actually exist. They will be spending that money, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars, on absolutely nothing as they pay penalties for the light rail contract that they promise to tear up. This is an attitude that is universally condemned. It is condemned by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, by companies in the business of delivering infrastructure and even by the federal Liberal government. Our local Liberals are prepared to spend all of that money on nothing. Perhaps they could cost this as an election policy: “If elected, the Canberra Liberals will throw a whole lot of money, your tax dollars, down the drain in exchange for nothing. Vote 1 Canberra Liberals.” I think that is going to be a winner of a policy!
The more I hear our Liberal Party colleagues talk about transport and their vision for Canberra, the more I realise that light rail is anathema to that vision. Light rail will prepare the city for the future and will make Canberra more livable and vibrant, more
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