Page 4815 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 20 October 2010
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designed to reduce the long-term costs of heating and cooling in houses. This is the sort of direction the Greens think we should be going in. It was very disappointing to find that that was not the direction the rest of the Assembly thought we should be going in.
Water is another significant cost and is another item which we have been debating in this Assembly today. This is an area where Mr Rattenbury, in particular, has been doing a lot of work. In Molonglo we have been attempting to get grey water provision from the beginning and, again, this is proving to be an uphill battle.
Transport is an area where both Ms Bresnan and I have been working. Mr Seselja has talked about Molonglo a lot, and one of the things in our agreement with the Labor Party was to have public transport in Molonglo at the same time as the people arrive. We want families all through Canberra to be in the position where they do not have to have two cars because the public transport and the active transport system is so bad. We want families in Canberra to be in the position where they can do what they need to do as a one-car family or a no-car family.
As members will appreciate, owning a car is quite expensive. It costs at least $5,000 a year to own a car. If we build Canberra with a good public transport system, with good cycleways, with good footpaths, we will save money for people in the long run. This is what makes housing actually affordable. This is what makes the difference between people finding themselves in a house that is possibly cheaper to buy in the suburbs but one where the running costs become impossible. With transport, as well as being more affordable in terms of running costs, it also becomes a lot more affordable in terms of health costs as people in Canberra have some exercise with walking and riding. Given the time, I will not speak any longer, but I just wanted to make it clear that the Greens are the party working to make the long-term costs of ownership affordable.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Health and Minister for Industrial Relations) (8:56): I will be brief because we are adjourning in a couple of minutes. The government will not be supporting this amendment. It really shows the short-sightedness of the Liberal Party that they would circulate an amendment at 8 o’clock after we have spent the whole day trying to negotiate with them around suitable amendments. They circulated it at 8 o’clock, five minutes before we started the debate, but we still did not get the final amendment until about 8.30, whilst we were debating it.
There are elements of Mr Seselja’s amendment you could support and where you think, “Oh yes,” but then it gets nasty. Paragraphs (2)(d) and (e) are the usual Liberal strategy of wrecking and spoiling and making something that other parties in this place cannot agree to. That is the strategy you guys have employed, and I wonder at what point in the four-year cycle you will realise that it is just not working and that you are not actually changing the debate or influencing the debate at all. That is why the government will not be supporting the amendment today.
Question put:
That Mr Seselja’s amendment be agreed to.
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