Page 2219 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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I believe that this government and this Assembly have a commitment to those in the northern suburbs who desperately need this infrastructure to actually get on and do what they are elected to do, and that is to govern for all Canberrans, including those in Gungahlin. The people of Gungahlin get a raw deal from this government and I believe they get a raw deal from this Assembly to a large extent. It is time that we stepped up and actually provided the infrastructure that they so desperately deserve.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (10.52): Before I discuss the Greens’ motion, I will address the motions presented by Mr Coe and Dr Bourke. Although obviously we are debating these motions cognately, as has already been discussed, and they all refer to Majura parkway, I should note that the Greens’ motion is the only one that is actually about sustainable transport and strategic transport planning. The motions from the government and the Liberal Party give no attention to strategic and sustainable transport at all.
Strategic and sustainable transport is key to the issue of Majura parkway. The project raises fundamental questions about how we plan our city and how we want transportation to work in Canberra now and in the future—not to mention the type of transport priorities the government is entrenching through its budget allocations.
I welcome Dr Bourke’s entry into this debate. But I am disappointed that he has used his inaugural motion in the Assembly to simply repeat the government’s arguments about Majura parkway.
As you will see from the text of my motion, there are seriousness weaknesses with these arguments. The Greens are asking the other parties to scrutinise and address these weaknesses. A repetitive government motion does not answer any of the Greens’ legitimate questions about the Majura parkway project.
The one-line motion offered by Mr Coe neatly encapsulates the Liberal Party’s complete lack of scrutiny on the Majura parkway project, and indeed on transport planning in general. The motion simply asks the Assembly to support building a new Majura parkway—no questions asked. It is a blinkered approach that skips a crucial step. The debate right now is not about how the project will be implemented; it is about whether this is the right infrastructure project for Canberra. It is negligent to fail the task of scrutiny.
What happened to the Liberals’ apparent scrutiny of major projects—the line we keep hearing from the Liberal Party, the great party of scrutiny? Their approach to this issue suggests that their decisions are guided solely by short-term politics.
The motion that the Greens have presented, which I will move later, is about two things. Firstly, it is about the direction that the ACT government is taking Canberra in with its transport planning, whether that direction is compatible with a sustainable Canberra and whether it will deliver the transport solutions that Canberrans need. Secondly, it is about the proposed Majura parkway and whether the government has properly and clearly made a case for funding this project.
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