Page 2277 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
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Public transport, in particular light rail, is an issue that has dogged ACT politics for the last eight years. I asked the government if it had compared the greenhouse gas emissions for light rail with those of bus rapid transit or if it had done a life cycle analysis for light rail. I was stunned to find that the answer was no. I also asked about operational greenhouse gas emissions for the light rail and I was told that it was commercial-in-confidence. Not what I expected.
This lack of basic information on the greenhouse gas effects of our major public transport infrastructure is one of the reasons for the climate change trigger in my planning legislation last week. What was passed will not give us all the information we need to make the right decisions for the long term, but at least it is a start. We actually need to know about the life cycle analysis of all of our major projects if we are to make decisions which will result in a more sustainable Canberra for the future.
I have some reservations about the cost of light rail as well as the time for which it is projected to take to get to Woden from Civic, especially compared to the current rapid bus services. One solution could be to ensure that there are express services to Woden. That could provide an attractive alternative to driving. I would like the government to think harder about how these express services could be delivered.
As I think will surprise no-one, the area I am most frustrated with is planning. We can do better. We have wasted the four years of this Assembly. What we are building in Canberra is unaffordable now for many Canberra residents, as well as unaffordable for our environment. What we are building will be here for the changed, hotter climate that is coming, and I am concerned that it just will not work well enough for the needs of our future and add to the destruction of our environment.
The parliamentary agreement included a commitment to an inquiry into housing by the planning committee. However, when the committee started, the other members of the committee wanted to first inquire into billboard advertising. When the planning committee finally began to inquire into housing, the government launched the housing choices citizens jury process, which covered many of the same topics of the planning committee inquiry, so the planning committee stopped its inquiry.
The citizens jury reported in mid-2018 and the government agreed in principle to all of the recommendations. It then did nothing with them. This was a waste of the community’s time, in my opinion, and a waste of an opportunity to build Canberra better. Along with many Canberrans, I have been frustrated to watch this kind of consultation, or non-consultation. It is disrespectful to the public to involve them in consultation but disregard their feedback.
As I said, we are not building a more sustainable Canberra. I probably will not go on about this because you all know what I am going to say. We need to build a Canberra that is affordable for the people of Canberra and is sustainable for our environment. We are pretty much building the biggest new houses in the world. I will leave it at that.
Income inequality has been rising, not just in the ACT but everywhere. The poor are getting poorer. I and my Greens colleagues have tried to do something about this with
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