Page 2232 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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I note that they were able to secure funding for the arboretum. When they want to get money for something they want, they will go and get it from the federal government. But when it comes to a priority that might be there for Canberra residents, particularly those in the outer suburbs, they fail dismally.
Part of the reason, of course, for this is the dismissive attitude from the federal government towards the Labor government here. What we see is that Katy Gallagher’s mates—Julia Gillard in particular—are so busy shovelling money into the electorates of Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor and Andrew Wilkie that they simply do not have enough time—
Mr Corbell: Relevance?
MR HANSON: The relevance, Mr Corbell, is to provide the $144 million that is being requested to support the building of this road. Labor federally and Labor locally between them cannot get the job done. Locally they do not have the attitude or nous or the negotiating skills—we have seen Katy Gallagher’s negotiating skills with Calvary—and they do not have the backing of their federal Labor colleagues who are so desperate to cling to power that they are shovelling all the priorities elsewhere, despite Infrastructure Australia putting this road forward as a priority.
When it comes to outcomes it is clear that there is a similarity between the government’s position and that of the Liberal opposition—we want the road built. Of that there is no question; we both want the road built. The difference of opinion here really is with the Greens. When it comes down to it and when you listen to Amanda Bresnan’s speech and that of Caroline Le Couteur, they are quite clearly anti road. They are anti car, and Ms Bresnan talked about the problems with cars.
It is bizarre that the Greens all of a sudden are starting to talk about the cost pressures of driving cars. If you are going to put a bus on every corner or a train route from every suburb into Civic, I would like to add up the cost of that. We can see from the Nightrider example that when you replace individual cars with a public transport system the way the Greens want to replace the need for everybody to get into their cars, it will be monumentally expensive. They are using the costs argument here, but I do not think I have ever heard the Greens use it elsewhere.
What is the cost of not doing it? What is the cost of not building the Majura parkway? I will tell you what it is—more lives will be lost on the Majura Road, more people will be stuck in traffic on the GDE and more freight will be on Northbourne Avenue preventing the free flow of traffic on that major arterial that we need to free up.
I notice that Dr Bourke, who is new in this place, rolled his eyes on a couple of occasions as the Greens were speaking. He seems to have some quite left-wing icons—Gough Whitlam and Don Dunstan. But what you find from the Greens is that their icons are people like Wilma and Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. If you get back to the quotes that you hear from the Greens, you know that what they want to do is take us back to the cave. That is a quote from Caroline Le Couteur in the media that you may not have heard. It was Caroline Le Couteur who said, “We don’t want to get back to the caves, yet.”
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