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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 1883 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Of course you could also talk about the costs and the economics of having a city whose air quality is decreasing - the cost to the health system of increasing respiratory problems in Canberra. The facts are clear enough in Sydney and other cities. There are already problems for people in the ACT who have respiratory illnesses at certain times of the day and in certain locations. This involves a cost. It may not be to Mr Smyth's department - it may not affect his budget bottom line - but it is a cost to someone else's bottom line. But, once again, we have individual Ministers defending their turf, defending their bottom line, and no whole-of-government approach taken to this.

If I were to get really esoteric in the discussion, which is what it appears to be in the context of this parliament, I would also talk about global air pollution. What are the costs of that to our society and the general society? Of course they are huge. That is why we have convention after convention now being signed by all nations to do something about greenhouse gas emissions. But that never comes up in this argument, until it suits the Government and they are trying to look wonderfully green by talking about their greenhouse gas targets and so on.

The Minister also said our motion mentioned a revenue neutral system. We actually took that from the Government's own language. What we were saying in our motion basically was that the fare structure should be developed, not developed with the aim of actually increasing revenue. That was all that meant, and that is pretty clear if you look at it. You know how governments use that term. That is exactly how we used it. We took it from their own language.

The economics are a big part of this whole discussion. We do not shy away from that at all. The Government has a very narrow view in its argument on the economics. Future generations of this city, future parliaments of this city, will condemn this Government and past governments for their lack of forward planning, their lack of a transport plan that actually takes into account the needs of present and future people in the ACT.

Question put:

That the proposed expenditure be agreed to.

The Assembly voted -

AYES, 8	 	NOES, 6

Ms Carnell	Mr Berry
Mr Cornwell	Mr Corbell
Mr Humphries	Mr Hargreaves
Mr Kaine	Mr Stanhope
Mr Moore	Ms Tucker
Mr Osborne	Mr Wood
Mr Smyth
Mr Stefaniak

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

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