Page 4246 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 23 October 2019
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We are disturbed by this attempt at politicising the infrastructure process and agree with Ms Le Couteur’s concern. We are highly supportive of the need for us here in the Assembly to have robust and valid differences and debates on infrastructure projects just as in many other areas where we have robust and valid debates. We are all entitled to our own views. The fact that we are in different parties should highlight the fact that we will have different views on many topics.
In paragraph 1(d) of Ms Le Couteur’s amendment she talks about support for a majority of projects that are sensible and non-controversial. Of course, that may depend on who you are asking about which ones are sensible and non-controversial. As an example of that, we are concerned about the government’s SPIRE version 2 project. We are encouraging the public to have their say on this.
I imagine that as one of the local members, Ms Le Couteur is also receiving representations from local community members and that she will be looking at ways to ensure in respect of that particular infrastructure issue—it has been progressed already and the issues have been articulated by my colleagues Mrs Jones and Mrs Dunne—that the locals must be considered. We must also consider in all of these projects the social, environmental and economic aspects, as Ms Le Couteur has quite rightly mentioned in her amendment.
I feel it was quite unnecessary in the first place for Ms Cody to bring this to the Assembly for debate when the government already have released their discussion paper and they should already be taking steps to implement it. This is the business of government. They are the government at this time and they have the responsibility to the people of the ACT to undertake these tasks.
That is not to mean that the opposition may not question them on specific or discrete elements of their plans, hold them to account and ask questions about the planning, the costings and the delivery of those projects. But they should be implementing their plans and it should not necessarily be in line with election cycles, because that is how you get short-term planning rather than long-term planning.
Therefore, I commend Ms Le Couteur’s amendment to the Assembly in which she recognises that long-term planning is critical to ensure that infrastructure is delivered. She mentioned her concerns about the politicisation of infrastructure planning processes. She acknowledges that there will be differences between political parties on some projects. She also calls on us—I think this is very important—to consider carefully future infrastructure projects against environmental, social and economic criteria. I feel this is very important. Sometimes we tend to act on one or two of those criteria, but not all three. I thank Ms Le Couteur for moving her amendment today. We will be supporting that amendment.
MS CODY (Murrumbidgee) (4.12): I will speak to Ms Le Couteur’s amendment, but I am also happy to close the debate, in view of the time. Ms Le Couteur’s amendment says that we should not be politicising infrastructure. Yet her amendment does just that. Her motion this morning was all about politicising infrastructure. In fact, a good half of her career here has been grandstanding about politicising infrastructure.
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