Page 2573 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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Wednesday, 10 August 2016
MADAM SPEAKER (Mrs Dunne) took the chair at 10 am and asked members to stand in silence and pray or reflect on their responsibilities to the people of the Australian Capital Territory.
Justice and Community Safety—Standing Committee
Statement by chair
MR DOSZPOT (Molonglo): Pursuant to standing order 246A I wish to make a statement on behalf of the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety performing its legislative scrutiny role relating to consideration of the Election Commitments Costing Amendment Bill 2016.
This is a bill for an act to amend the Election Commitments Costing Act 2012 in relation to costing requests. The committee has examined the Election Commitments Costing Amendment Bill 2016 and offers no comment on it.
Transport—light rail
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.02): I move:
That this Assembly supports calls to cancel the $1.78 billion tram and instead invest in better hospitals, better schools and better local services.
I rise today to talk about the future of the ACT. It is very clear to me and to our community that in October we are at a crossroads where there are two paths forward for this town. There is a vision that comes from the Labor Party and the Greens for a town where much of the available dollars in each budget for the next 20, 30, potentially 40, years will be expended on light rail. That is their proposal. They have committed to phase 1, which is $1.78 billion. They have promised future phases, which will be hundreds of millions, billions, of dollars—we will wait to see. I note that I cannot reflect really on many major infrastructure projects this government has done that have not doubled in price—I think the dam actually tripled—the jail, GDE, hospital car park and many others. When we are talking about the $1.78 billion and the other hundreds of millions, they are figures which will escalate.
That is in contrast with the Canberra Liberals’ vision, which is a different vision. We will invest where we think the priorities of the Canberra community lie—fixing our health system, education, and better local services. I have been saying this for quite some time. This has been part of our narrative because it is what we are hearing from the Canberra community. We will have more announcements to come but, as you may have seen in the media today, the Canberra Liberals today have announced another piece of the puzzle, another part of that vision that we will realise into the future with our health announcement.
This follows other announcements we have made, and I will reflect on those I made in my budget reply speech. We announced an $85 million package in education with
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