Page 1861 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 June 2016
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operating and maintaining the service for 20 years—the exact point that I was making. This is not how we usually express the costs of projects, but it is an important point to make. On that basis, our light rail project, I believe, is actually a very good deal. It makes building future stages of light rail cheaper and easier.
On this note, I would welcome Mr Coe clarifying in his closing speech whether he is open to supporting future stages of light rail to Belconnen, Woden, Tuggeranong or the airport. We have heard him ask at various times, “Why isn’t it going to Belconnen?” The answer, I imagine, is that without stage 1 there will be no stage 2. It is trying to get it sometimes on both sides of the equation. We hear Mr Coe say that it should have gone to Belconnen first. I wonder, if it had gone to his electorate whether we might have seen a different position from the Canberra Liberals.
Finally, Mr Coe has called on the government to publish the contracts. As Mr Corbell has just outlined and confirmed, this is about to occur. As I have always said, transparency on this project has been of the highest level. The Liberal Party like this, of course, because it gives them more information to distort and twist into a negative campaign. But releasing all of this information is important for the community nonetheless. As Minister Corbell just outlined, we are seeing an unprecedented level of transparency on this project compared to like projects in Australia.
To conclude, and perhaps with no surprise to those opposite, I will not be supporting Mr Coe’s motion. The government will be releasing the contract, nonetheless, as was intended. Mr Coe’s motion is full of the usual claims and exaggerations that only serve to demonstrate his party’s hostility to sustainable transport, to shaping the future of this city in a sustainable way, and the opportunism of a short-term strategy to try to win the next election.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (4.43), in reply: Of course, Mr Rattenbury says at the end that our position is based on a bid to win the next election. If light rail is so popular, why does the government not hold off on light rail and take it to the next election? Why don’t they? Why does this government not say, “Actually, let’s make the 2016 election a referendum about light rail?” It is because they do not want that. They do not want that.
Mr Corbell: Because we did it in 2012.
MR COE: And you got fewer votes, Simon.
Mr Corbell: I’m sitting here; you’re sitting over there.
MR COE: And you got fewer votes. It is an important differentiation to make.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Coe, Mr Corbell!
MR COE: It is all very well for him to claim that 2012 was a referendum on light rail even though, of course, it was not. But it does not actually answer the question why they got fewer votes than the Liberal Party which, of course, did not take that policy to the election if, indeed, Labor did.
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