Page 3548 - Week 08 - Thursday, 18 August 2011
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construction of the Majura parkway to proceed. It highlights the benefits of being persistent, and it also highlights the quality of work undertaken to support the project. It shows that both the federal and the ACT government are prepared to invest strongly in the future of this community.
What assistance has the government received from those opposite in achieving the timely delivery of this project? Over the last six years of the planning for the Majura parkway—zero. In the approaches to and lobbying of Infrastructure Australia, supporting the need for and priority of the road—zero. When Mr Seselja talks about the importance of timely delivery of road infrastructure, he needs to understand that it just does not emerge overnight, as if dropped by a stork into this place. The timely delivery of road infrastructure is about good planning, persistence, patience and an understanding of what is important to the community. Sadly, Mr Seselja has been measured against this and found lacking.
The Gallagher government, on the other hand, has delivered its roadworks program and can be proud of its achievements to date. Also it can give the Canberra community confidence in the future in relation to the timely delivery of the Majura parkway.
However, the ACT government does agree with Mr Seselja on the importance of timely delivery of road infrastructure. The difference is that the ACT government understands what this means and can demonstrate this by what has been delivered in 2010-11 and in recent years. Mr Seselja, on the other hand, can only talk about this matter of public importance.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.16): I am pleased that Minister Corbell has returned so that I can actually correct his version of the history of this project. Yes, I was the minister that started it. I am very proud of that achievement. Mr Corbell quoted from the 2001-02 budget and said this was the first time that money appeared for any of these projects. He is just plain wrong, and he actually should correct the record and apologise to the Assembly, because it actually appears for the first time in budget 2000-01, on page 126 of budget paper 3. There is money appropriated, small amounts, to start the planning for the Gungahlin Drive extension—four lanes plus tunnel. So there it is. There is the first mistake that Mr Corbell makes. As with all the mistakes Mr Corbell makes, he will not stand up and apologise for getting his facts wrong.
The second fact is this: Mr Corbell took to the 2001 election the famous on-time, on-budget promise. He was going to deliver a four-lane Gungahlin Drive extension on the Liberals’ budget and on the Liberals’ timetable. That would have seen this road opened—four lanes; that is two north, two south—on 1 July 2005. Mr Corbell, your efforts are six years, one month and 18 days late. It is not on time, it is not on budget, it is not going to be completed early.
The people of northern Canberra, and indeed the people of southern Canberra—because the traffic from Tuggeranong relies very much on the Tuggeranong Parkway, which leads to the Glenloch Interchange—and the people of Woden and Weston Creek, have been suffering because of your ineptitude, your inability to deliver and your broken promises. And that is the problem.
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