Page 2312 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 16 June 2009
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MS HUNTER: How are you ensuring the safety and amenity of the interim bus services and facilities in Belconnen for commuters?
MR STANHOPE: Certainly in the context of everything that ACTION or Roads ACT do, there is a partnership in relation to the new arrangements. It is work that at one level, of course, has been pursued quite correctly, as one would expect, by ACTION in relation to the infrastructure upgrades, particularly the installation of new sets of traffic lights, new bus layovers, new bus stops and services at bus stops for commuters and the availability of information at each of the new stops and the new configurations and arrangements for commuters.
Safety is always an issue. In relation to the engineering, in the establishment and introduction of the new infrastructure, safety would always have been one of the engineering considerations and design considerations taken in relation to the new arrangements.
In the context of the question that you ask around safety, I am not aware that any safety issues per se have been raised with ACTION or with Roads ACT in relation to the new infrastructure or the configuration. Now that you have raised it with me, Ms Hunter, I will seek assurances from ACTION and from Roads ACT that the new infrastructure and the new arrangements comply, as I would always expect they would, with all appropriate and relevant Australian standards. I will seek that assurance explicitly from my officials.
Hospitals—Calvary Public Hospital
MR SMYTH: My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, in your capacity as Minister for Health, you have told the Canberra community that you wished to purchase Calvary Public Hospital. Treasurer, will the Assembly have the opportunity to vote on an appropriation to achieve the purchase of Calvary or, if not, why not?
MS GALLAGHER: That would force you out of the corner, would it not? If you actually had to have a vote, you would have to have a view on it. That is interesting. We might have to put everything through appropriation bills. All these controversial matters that you seek to prosecute, we will put them all in an appropriation bill and make you vote line by line on them and maybe we will draw you out. For the party that stands for nothing but criticism, it is the way to go. Thank you for that tremendous strategic advice.
Depending on the outcomes of the negotiation process, which is still ongoing, as to the nature of the timing of that, my understanding is that an appropriation bill will be required.
Mr Smyth: You told the Property Council the other day—
MS GALLAGHER: No, I did not tell the Property Council that. Again, I have to pat myself on the back for predicting the question you would ask. I said I was taking further advice on mechanisms—and you will recall this—involving the Assembly that
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