Page 2553 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 11 August 2015
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Another Chris, this one from Weetangera, wrote to say the plans to close the car park opposite the Melbourne building were “unfair, unjust and very unreasonable” for small business in the area. Rex from Hawker said:
Light rail is a stupid, money vacuuming dream of someone with delusions of grandeur.
Christine and Clark said:
Light rail is our biggest concern; the cost is totally unacceptable. A rail line is very costly, very inflexible. It cannot be easily rerouted if future needs change.
Maddison of Hawker said:
Who is going to use it? Not me. Better to spend on improved health services.
Patricia of Macquarie described capital metro as a “waste of taxpayers’ money”. A Spence couple concluded:
Light rail has no mandate. The Greens want to use a weak, fiscally irresponsible Labor government to bring light rail to the ACT at great cost. Only the Liberals stand in the way.
In 2012 the people of Ginninderra kept Labor in power. Many of the people who voted Labor in 2012 are considering changing their vote in 2016 because of their enormous concern over the light rail project, coming as it does on top of massive rate increases in recent years and the lack of services.
Madam Deputy Speaker, that is what the people of Ginninderra are trying to say to this government about light rail. The government is not listening, but the Canberra Liberals are. I will speak for the people of Ginninderra even if their Labor representatives—you, Dr Bourke and Ms Berry—will not.
Let me finish with two further quotes that arrived in my office in the past week, both coming from constituents who wished to remain anonymous. The first said, “Totally opposed.” The other said, quite simply, “Don’t do it!”
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (11.33): I am going to take the opportunity to speak a couple of times in this debate today. I was going to wait till the end but I thought, given the very strong comments of Mrs Dunne, that I should perhaps remind her and her colleagues of some other views that have been expressed in relation to light rail here in Canberra.
I quote from a piece called “The Potential and Limitations of Sustainability Policy”, which was submitted to an academic journal called Governance in relation to sustainability matters. It was an interesting piece because it commented on the opportunities that light rail presented for Canberra. In particular it had regard to issues such as size and it had regard to issues such as finance. It would be worth, I think, starting by highlighting the views of that author in relation to light rail for our city. It starts by saying:
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