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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 849 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

measures to reduce emissions arising from transport use need to be actively pursued and one key initiative must be to start providing a viable alternative to the private motor vehicle. Comments in relation to greenhouse are few and far between in the majority report.

Mr Speaker, we need a re-examination of how public transport is provided in a disbursed city such as Canberra. The Canberra community values the decentralised structure of our city with its open space bonus and other green areas in contrast to the more radial and concentrated nature of the traditional Australian city. There is no doubt that a decentralised city is not necessarily an obstacle to the provision of effective public transport. An effective public transport system can be provided by utilising the hubs or town centres and group centres in the city for public transport. The committee's discussions with Professor Peter Newman of Murdoch University in Western Australia, who is also the author of Towards a More Sustainable Canberra, published in 1991, highlight this point. Unfortunately, the majority report has chosen to ignore that very valuable contribution.

The overwhelming opinion of most submitters to the inquiry is that Canberra's bus network did not provide the responsive level of service needed to effectively compete with the private motor vehicle. Evidence by Dr Paul Mees on behalf of the conservation council highlighted the fact that improved frequency of service, coupled with easing interchanging, could provide a far more effective public transport service than one based on zonal fares, no interchanging and costly indirect service provision. These are strategies that the government should investigate as a balancing element of providing a more sustainable transport system for Gungahlin and Canberra.

I would like to briefly turn now, Mr Speaker, to the issue of the alignment of the proposed Gungahlin Drive extension. A major question for the committee was exactly where this alignment should proceed, and it was the key issue raised in the overwhelming majority of submissions. The original government proposal for the Gungahlin Drive extension favoured an eastern alignment with spurs connecting to Barry Drive and Caswell Drive. Subsequently, the government has announced its decision to remove the spur connecting to Barry Drive but retain the remainder of the eastern alignment with a connection to Caswell Drive. This announcement does not, in my view, address the significant concerns relating to the impact on the O'Connor Ridge nature park area. In particular, it does not address the issues relating to the sustainability of the reserve area.

Any road which results in a division of the area, as this proposal would do straight through the middle, does not in my view assist in the sustainability of the area as a conservation unit. Alignment of the Gungahlin Drive extension to the east will result in the division of O'Connor and Bruce ridges and, as I said earlier, will result in a serious compromising of the O'Connor/Bruce Ridge nature park as a unit for conservation. If the eastern alignment proceeds there will be an unnecessary and destructive impact along a considerable length of the O'Connor and Bruce ridge, and damage to the nature park area will not have been attempted to be minimised in any way.

In contrast, the western alignment will not have the same level of impact. The impact of the road will be restricted to an area of the Bruce Ridge alone, adjacent to the Bruce CIT and Calvary Hospital. There will still be an impact on an area of Canberra Nature Park

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