Page 1583 - Week 05 - Thursday, 2 June 2022

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approvals point of view in the whole of Australia. There are going to be multiple points where we engage with the community on much of the technical documentation that is being prepared for the project as part of works approvals, as part of development application approvals and as part of Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act approvals. That is part of the work that will be required by both houses of the parliament in the future.

We look forward to having more engagement than that on the project as well. There has also been ample opportunity for people to engage with the government with the pop-ups and through the extensive release of information that we have already made available on this project. There is a sensitive commercial element to it, so there will not be an opportunity to release some of that information while we are in that commercial process.

MS CLAY: Minister, are there other reports which the government is using to make informed decisions on the future of light rail stage 2 which are not yet released?

MR STEEL: There will be extensive reports will be made available to government, many of which will inform the commercial process that is underway as part of the procurement with Canberra metro for stage 2A and then in the future procurement on stage 2B. Of course, that information may be sensitive. In order to achieve the best value for money for the people of the Australian Capital Territory it will be necessary in some circumstances not to disclose that information, which could be of a commercial sensitive nature and could cause us to get a much poorer outcome from a value for money perspective on the project.

There will be extensive opportunities for people to engage on the various works approvals. We have had the works approval process already for raising London Circuit. All of the technical documentation was quite extensive. We are looking forward to engaging with the community on further works approvals for stage 2A as well as all the other planning approvals—consultation leading up to those approvals and engagement on the future design of this project going forward. There will be a lot of information that we are going to need to explain and put some context around as well. We will look at how we can provide as much information as we can to the community to help them engage with the design and implementation. We are committed to this project and bringing it down to Woden. We want to hear the community’s engagement now on the design of that project.

MR CAIN: Minister, when is the expected delivery date for stage 2A?

MR STEEL: That is the process that we are going through as part of the procurement on stage 2A with Canberra Metro, so it is subject to that procurement process that is underway. Of course, we have already received works approval from the NCA on raising London Circuit. That will be the first major piece of work that has happened. Early works are already underway. We are looking forward to that occurring around the middle of this year, so very soon. We are getting started on RLC and, following that, we will get started on stage 2A.

Mr Parton interjecting—


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