Page 158 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2006
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What Mr Corbell is essentially saying, and what he said in his speech, is that because the sustainable transport plan that he put together says that these busways or these priority lanes are justified, therefore, it is a good idea. He puts together a plan and it justifies everything he goes and then does later. Rather than arguing the merits of whether a busway is a good idea for Canberra and looking at some of the detail, what he is essentially saying, with this amendment and through his speech, is: “My sustainable transport plan says it is a good idea to do these types of things, so it is a good idea.” It is ridiculous to have that as the basis of what you are saying.
Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, as you pointed out in your speech, nowhere else does it deal with the issue of whether a busway is a good idea or not or whether spending $150 million for a three-minute saving is a good idea. It talks about broad targets. It talks about greenhouse gas in a broad context. But essentially the argument behind this is: “My sustainable transport plan says it is okay; therefore, it is a good idea.” If that is the level of debate we are going to have, that is disappointing. What I called for in my earlier speech was a passionate defence of the busway. I have to say I was surprised that we got at least some defence of the busway from Mr Corbell when he was speaking to this. He seems to be the only person left who will stand up and defend the $150 million Belconnen to Civic busway.
I would have thought that on a matter like this ordinarily we would see some of his colleagues here to back him up. I was expecting maybe the Treasurer to come out and tell us what he thinks of the busway and what a good idea it is. I was expecting perhaps the Chief Minister to tell us what he thinks of it. He could not even pull out a backbencher to come in and tell us what a great idea it is. So Mr Corbell is out on his own on this. This busway will not go ahead. As much as the planning minister still wants it to—and I am surprised that he is holding to that view—there is no support for it. It is interesting that the latter part of the amendment states:
… notes that any future funding for the development and construction of these corridors will be considered by the ACT Government in the budget context.
We have seen a bit of a precursor to that consideration in the media. We have seen the Treasurer saying what he thinks will happen in the budget considerations. He thinks it certainly is not going to get funding this term; and it will be a corridor for maybe light rail, or maybe a busway or something else. We have seen what the Chief Minister thinks about it. That is two. I guess we have to wait and see what Mr Hargreaves and Ms Gallagher think of this as to whether Mr Corbell has the numbers. I suspect that he will not.
I suspect that this will not get off the ground. I suspect that much of that $6 million that has been spent to date will have been wasted. I am sure that the Chief Minister and the Treasurer must have formed views fairly early as to whether they thought it was a good idea or not, why this kind of level of detail was gone into and why $6 million needed to be spent ahead of time. This is a disappointing amendment. As I say, it does not address the issue.
One of the other things it talks about, as I mentioned before, is greenhouse gas. It talks about it in a fairly generalised way. Mr Corbell refers to the ACT government’s
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