Page 5692 - Week 15 - Thursday, 10 December 2009

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aware of in relation to the challenges that Canberra’s geography sets in relation to sustainable transport and public transport and the capacity to lay out an affordable and sustainable transport network that the people of Canberra will respond to, including issues around density and the extent to which the city has been built to date for the motor vehicle, these are significant issues for us to grapple with.

To think that we could just retrofit or turn around those parts of our history and devote significantly greater amounts of money to cycle ways and to pedestrians and ignore the needs for a road network that will not just provide the opportunity across the city for an equitable road network but a road network that essentially is at the heart of our economy is not possible. The implications for economic activity through roads that do not work well and cause delay are quite significant. The modelling around the cost to the economy and to the community as a result of roads that jam or clog is absolutely quite stunning when one looks at that.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Coe, a supplementary question?

MR COE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Chief Minister, will you please tell the Assembly what the cost of installing a bike lane on Streeton Drive was, and the cost of removing it?

MR STANHOPE: I would be more than happy to take those questions on notice. I just have not got them quite in the brain today but I am more than happy to take them on notice, Mr Coe.

Canberra—cost of petrol

MR COE: My question is to the Chief Minister and relates to the cost of petrol in the ACT and comments by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Chief Minister, does the government agree with comments by Petrol Commissioner Joe Dimasi in yesterday’s Canberra Times where he suggested that Canberra motorists pay more for petrol than motorists in other cities due to a lack of economies of scale in the Canberra retail petrol market?

MR STANHOPE: I have to say, to do justice to Mr Coe’s question, that I do not have any briefing advice or advice on differential costs in petrol as between Canberra and other places such as Sydney and regional areas. I must say that I would treat that particular statement with some scepticism.

There are at different times, in relation to different surveys of petrol prices around New South Wales and the ACT, instances where petrol is being sold more cheaply in smaller, more regional and distant cities such as Wagga and Dubbo than in—

Mr Coe: He is wrong then, is he?

MR STANHOPE: I say that I would treat it with some scepticism on the question of density and economies of scale. If that were the case, on what basis would the cost of petrol in Albury, Wagga or Dubbo ever be cheaper than it is in the ACT? As I say, I do not have detailed information—


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