Page 4211 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 23 October 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
our city’s infrastructure where it is ageing, to build new infrastructure in growth areas and to replace infrastructure across all regions of our city as it falls due for that replacement. We want our city to continue to be the world’s most liveable city. We want it to be a place where people love to live, where they come here to work, to study, to run a business, to raise a family.
We know that Canberrans want better healthcare in our suburbs. They want more and upgraded public schools. They want a bigger public transport network and they want the streets, parks and community facilities that they love to be made even better. That is part of the infrastructure plan.
The plan sets out the construction of a range of city defining projects: the major Canberra Hospital expansion, continuing the rollout of the light rail network, a CIT campus redevelopment program and a new cultural theatre and arts precinct. We are also planning for the replacement and upgrading of ageing infrastructure that includes big ticket items like convention centres and stadiums but we are also focused on ensuring that we renew community-level and suburb-level infrastructure that in various parts of our city is between 50 and 100 years old.
When the government released the 2011 infrastructure plan our four-year pipeline of works was in the order of $885 million within a total program of around $1.6 billion. Since that time we have stepped up our program. (Time expired.)
MR PETTERSSON: Chief Minister, how does the plan deliver a long-term vision for the city?
MR BARR: It is important to get ahead of our population growth and our economic diversification, and to get ahead of challenges like responding to climate change. Other cities have taken a different approach, to delay infrastructure commitments to allow for haphazard growth and to play catch-up with population. That way only leads to transport congestion, long commutes, overcrowded facilities and city services under intense strain.
That is why the plan is carefully aligned to invest in infrastructure at a point when our city’s resident population and our increasing visitor numbers exist to ensure that it is viable and well used.
Through the infrastructure plan we can guarantee that Canberra will continue to take the lead in addressing and adapting to climate change. The plan, importantly, recognises that our city cannot simply sprawl outwards forever. That is why the plan focuses on how we can renew ageing infrastructure for new and existing residents. So it is as much about renewing, restoring and improving infrastructure that we already have, as it is about building new things.
To protect our environment and to maintain our city’s character, common sense dictates that future land release needs to be more focused towards urban renewal, and the infrastructure must follow that policy direction in our city centre, in our town centres and in our transport corridors.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video