Page 4384 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
$700 million has resulted in the loss of bus services across our city? Dedicated school services have been cut. Xpresso services have been cut. Suburban services have been cut. Weekend services have been cut. Some 750 bus stops have been cut. This is the real cost of light rail for thousands of Canberrans, a cost they were not previously aware of.
Good transport planning, not to mention good government, relies on transparency and being up-front with Canberrans. Good transport planning means being open to new and emerging technologies and changing the scope and design of the network where appropriate. But we have seen none of this from the government since light rail stage 1 was announced. From the superficial consultation with Gungahlin businesses affected by light rail construction to the refusal to release the indicative costs of stage 2, this government remains hell-bent on delivering light rail at any cost.
If the government was committed to good planning of the light rail network the minister would have recognised the challenges associated with moving the project through the parliamentary corridor and perhaps reconsidered the scope of stage 2. After months of pressure from the opposition and the wider community the government finally released the business case for stage 2A, which we now know has a benefit-cost ratio of 0.4, with stage 2B coming in marginally better at 0.6.
Those opposite still refuse to release even indicative costs for stage 2B and future stages. Essentially the minister is asking Canberrans to blindly trust him, when we all know that this ACT Labor-Greens government has shown very little respect for Canberrans’ money in the past. It shows how little this government thinks of Canberrans when it pursues a project like this, which represents such little value for money, while refusing to tell Canberrans how much it is going to cost them.
The government also continues to fail to properly address issues of overhead wires through the parliamentary triangle. The NCA, the federal government and local community advocates have made it clear that overhead wires are not acceptable, and yet this government continues to bury its head in the sand and include overhead wires in its proposal, refusing to address the environmental and planning implications this will have.
Instead of considering alternative approaches such as the Belconnen to the airport route, the government has remained stubbornly committed to a route that may not end up being approved and one that it has demonstrated does not represent good value for money. I challenge the minister to release the full costs of stage 2A and 2B; release the indicative costs for stages 3 and 4; show Canberrans that these business cases stack up; and advise Canberrans exactly how much of their money the government is asking them to commit. That would finally constitute good planning.
This government and the Minister for Transport love to claim that they are committed to innovative and accessible transport solutions. The minister is so committed to innovation that on the ABC just days ago he flatly ruled out ever trialling trackless trams! To use Ms Cody’s words from yesterday, Mr Steel is truly a transport minister looking in the rear-view mirror.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video