Page 4093 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 18 November 2015
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Let me repeat that:
It seems absurd to me that anyone would actually use this service.
He also raised the favourite old parochial argument that the red rapid comes at the expense of services to elsewhere. “Why doesn’t the government care about west Belconnen?” he asked.
If these arguments sound familiar, it is because they are all the exact same arguments that Mr Coe is now recycling and using to argue against light rail from Gungahlin to the city. He says exactly the same things: that people will not interchange; it mirrors other routes; it will be slow; what about other areas; and so on. How did all of these arguments stack up in relation to the red rapid service? Not very well at all. They were all wrong. They have been outed as the anti-public transport hyperbole that they were. The red rapid is now an extremely popular and well-patronised service, and Mr Coe will admit that himself. In fact he has done so today—conveniently pretending that he never opposed it with the familiar gusto that we see him oppose light rail with today.
The Liberal Party have just moved one step along. They could not stop the red rapid, so now they oppose the next public transport improvement for Gungahlin—light rail—using all of the same spurious arguments. The Liberal Party have been attacking public transport initiatives for so long that the projects they attack have come to fruition and have in fact proven them to be wrong.
The fact remains that light rail is a long-term, sustainable transport and planning solution for our growing city. It is the right strategic choice for Canberra’s public transport spine, particularly considering its outstanding qualities in terms of encouraging urban renewal, compatibility with renewable energy, its comfort and reliability, its ability to attract new patronage, and its suitability to denser urban environments.
I noted that earlier Mr Coe talked about the fact that the government did not have a very good narrative, and that it kept changing. He cited various lines of discussion that the government has undertaken in the past two years. The bottom line is that that is inconvenient for Mr Coe, in that there is not a single narrative. There are a series of benefits that come from this. So the government keeps talking about different things because there are a range of benefits there. That does not suit the single narrative of “it’s good” or “it’s bad”, but it does reflect the true narrative that this is a large, complex project with a range of benefits and a range of consequences, and that is why there is a range of issues being discussed.
Let me turn to some of the issues raised in the Auditor-General’s report, and mirrored to some degree in Mr Coe’s motion. The Auditor-General makes a lot of pertinent and accurate observations. I agree with her that there are improvements that need to happen to ensure the public transport elements of the transport for Canberra plan are properly implemented. I welcome her findings and recommendations. Members will know that the Greens have always pushed hard on public transport policy, and we have pushed hard on government to ensure that they live up to the promises and
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