Page 1534 - Week 04 - Thursday, 25 March 2010
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MR STANHOPE: This is an ALP-Greens result, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: It has got nothing to do with Mr Smyth, Mr Stanhope. Continue with the answer.
MR STANHOPE: That is true. It has nothing to do with Mr Smyth, that is for sure. Mr Speaker, the Redex trial provides a rapid bus service with a frequency of 15 minutes between 7 am to 7 pm every week day from Gungahlin marketplace—
Mr Coe: Where did that 8½ thousand votes go?
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Coe.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order, members!
MR STANHOPE: It is a service that runs every week from Gungahlin through to Kingston railway station via Mitchell, Northbourne Avenue, the city, Russell and Barton. I think it is important to note that the government to date has far exceeded the expectation of the ALP-Greens parliamentary agreement in relation to this. We were there discussing a 30-minute frequency but we have exceeded that—doubled it—to a 15-minute frequency across the day. It is a fantastic service and a very good example of the partnerships that can be developed and what can be achieved when members of this place choose to work together and where we do not have the extreme adversarial opposition for opposition politics that really now is the hallmark of the opposition in this place.
If only there were a willingness to work with the government, I am sure we would achieve much more than we have been achieving. Redex, of course, follows one of the rapid routes on the frequent network that has been developed over the last year by Jarrett Walker, who worked with the government to develop the detail of the strategic public transport network plan, which the government is intent on now implementing. It is an intention that has certainly been enhanced by the success of the Redex service, a service, of course, that has been attacked from the outset by Mr Coe and the Liberal Party.
Mr Coe: How is that dead running going, Jon? How is it going?
MR SPEAKER: Mr Coe!
MR STANHOPE: Mr Coe quickly changes the subject to deflect attention. Mr Coe’s opposition to Redex actually reminds me of Mr Seselja’s opposition to land rent, another one of those most embarrassing issues for a member of the Liberal Party to back the wrong horse at the outset. We were told, “Redex will never work; nobody will take it; it will not be used; it is a complete waste of time.”
It was very similar to the language we heard from his leader in relation to land rent, the scheme that would never work, that nobody wanted. In fact, in an ideological
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