Page 109 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 February 2010
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What has escaped some attention in this debate is that the government has responded to another of the specific concerns of the Gungahlin Community Council and of residents, and as raised by the Greens party, around the signalisation of the intersection of Well Station Drive and Horse Park Drive. That will go ahead from the commencement of this particular project. Again, I reiterate, perhaps for the third or fourth time, that it would have been politically easy to have just said yes to the realignment proposal.
Again, I recognise that some in the community, particularly those residents in that street in Harrison, will not be happy with this outcome. But, from time to time, governments have to make difficult decisions. This is one of those occasions. We will not be pursuing the cheap political opportunism that the Liberal Party proposes. We have looked at the evidence.
We have done what the motion suggested—to look at the alternate route—and found it to have considerable issues. We have gone back to the Greens party. They have agreed with us in relation to those issues. We have responded to the other concerns raised by residents. That is, I think, a fair and balanced outcome. There are many, many projects, Madam Deputy Speaker, that can now go ahead in Gungahlin and elsewhere in the city as a result of not having to commit up to around $5 million and possibly more towards this realignment.
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (5.07): I would like to take the opportunity now to outline in more detail the Greens’ position on this. I guess the first thing to say is that, yes, we did vote for the motion in November. It is now February, and some things have changed in that time. The Greens, being an evidence-based party, will try to consider our position on things on the basis of the evidence in front of us.
There are two substantial things which have changed between November and now. Firstly, there is the safety issue. This was the first issue which the residents brought up with us when I went to see them last year. They said they were really concerned that the traffic was going to be such that they would be living next to a death trap, there would be accidents there all the time and they would become ambulance chasers. I am very pleased that, as a result of the pressure of the Assembly and the Greens in particular, the government redid the traffic studies. As Mr Barr has said and as I will say again, the intersection will be signalised from the date of its construction so that the number one concern of the residents, safety, has been addressed. That is a positive result.
The second thing that has changed between November and now is our knowledge of the costing of the alternative route. When the Greens voted for Mr Coe’s motion last year, in November, it did not occur to us—I imagine it did not occur to Mr Coe—that it could possibly cost a lot more to change the route. After all, the road had not been built, and it was going to be shorter. Both of those things are abundantly true. So I figured it would cost $1 million or something. It came as a great surprise to me and my Greens colleagues to learn that it was going to be in the order of $5 million.
Mr Coe: How did you learn that?
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