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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 7 Hansard (4 June) . . Page.. 1836 ..

MR STANHOPE: For the edification of poor Mr Smyth, "through the Speaker", addressing the chair, does not mean standing here and gazing at the Speaker with the adoration that one normally shows for the Speaker. Addressing the chair does not require one to look at the chair. Don't you know that, Mr Smyth? This is fairly basic stuff, mate.

Mr Smyth: Like the difference between basic planning and real planning?

MR STANHOPE: Juvenile. The boy!

MR SPEAKER: Order! Would you come to the point of the question? Mr Smyth, please be quiet.

MR STANHOPE: There are some very significant issues at stake here, in relation to this particular issue. There are significant costs involved in the decisions that have to be made about the construction of Gungahlin Drive. It is a big project. It costs a lot of money, and we are not so negligent of our responsibilities to the ACT taxpayer that we are going to go charging down burrows if, at the end of the day, the Commonwealth, assisted by you, is going to put the mockers on the route.

If the Liberal Party, both locally and federally, succeeds in the campaign it is running to stop the route, we are not going to be left holding an enormous bill as a result. The Liberal Party here in the ACT is determined to do whatever it can do to stop Gungahlin Drive being built along the western route, where we promised it would be built.

Mrs Dunne: We want to get the road built on time and on budget.

MR STANHOPE: You do not. You are not prepared to cop the fact that you lost the election. You are not prepared to cop the fact that the people of Canberra have accepted that this road will be built on the western route. That is where the road is going to be built. You will not accept it. You are doing everything you can do to stop it. At the end of the day, after having stopped the road from proceeding on time, you cannot stand up and say, "You did not actually build the road in time. We stopped you from doing it, but you have not built it on time. Ha, ha, ha, how smart are we?" Goodness me. Everybody is awake to that nonsense.

Gungahlin Drive extension

MRS CROSS: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Planning, Mr Corbell, but I would rather ask it while looking adoringly into your eyes.

MR SPEAKER: It will not help you. Go for your life.

MRS CROSS: The view is a bit more attractive looking that way than the other way. Minister, does the government have a timetable for the construction of the Gungahlin Drive extension?

MR CORBELL: Yes, Mr Speaker, the government has been very clear about its timetable. The intention is to complete construction of the road in accordance with the previous government's capital works timetable.

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