Page 3612 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 22 November 2022
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MRS KIKKERT: Minister, did you ever consider the impact on single parents, who face even greater challenges in trying to make ends meet and balance work and life, before you decided to make their lives even harder?
MR STEEL: Of course we have considered the impact on the community; that was the whole idea of setting up the Disruption Taskforce—that as we build these important major infrastructure projects for our city’s future, we work with the community, we provide them with information and we put in place the measures that will help them move around the city. That has included infrastructure interventions to deal with major bottlenecks that currently exist in the city on Commonwealth Avenue, on Parke’s Way and around Coranderrk Street. That has included signalising Vernon Circle and putting in Bluetooth “sniffers” so we can provide better, up-to-date, real-time information to make sure we are aware of accidents and intervene with emergency services as quickly as possible to remove those accidents and to stop congestion occurring on our road network. We are providing people with the information they need to make decisions about their commute into the city. We will continue to work with the community and build the infrastructure our city needs. It sounds like the Canberra Liberals would not do that.
Roads—Coppins Crossing
MR COCKS: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Transport and City Services. Minister, I have spent a lot of time speaking with our constituents in the Molonglo Valley. If you listen to them, they will tell that you one of their biggest concerns is traffic and congestion, and the impact of your failure to deliver a bridge over Coppins Crossing. Minister, now that your decade of disruption has started, will construction of the bridge over Coppins Crossing start before you commence construction of stage 2A of the tram?
MR STEEL: Construction of stage 2A of the tram has started. Walk outside and have a look. There is a bunting that says that we are building it. Just read the bunting.
We are also getting on with building the other infrastructure. That is also disruptive, as it is construction. That includes the John Gorton Drive bridge and the extension road to 500 metres to connect people north and south in the Molonglo Valley. So we are getting on with that work as well the upgrades to William Hovell Drive and the Monaro Highway and duplicating Athlon Drive. We are getting on with all of those major projects. We committed to them at the election and several elections, and we are getting on with delivering them.
The John Gorton Drive project is just one project in the Molonglo Valley. We continue the early planning work on an east-west arterial road to connect people from the middle of the Molonglo and the potential western edge investigation area in the future onto the Tuggeranong Parkway. We also continue to do feasibility on what improvements can be made on Parkes Way, which we know is actually the major bottleneck—and which was excluded by the coalition. They refused to do any work whatsoever on Parkes Way.
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