Page 3056 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 2013

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At 6 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.

MR RATTENBURY: The new measures will be implemented as part of a wider suite of measures on the surrounding Holt streets. My amendment asks that the Assembly support this approach. It is a more holistic approach to traffic management across the suburb and one that involved months of talking to the community about the problems they need addressed.

Lastly I note that Mr Coe’s motion calls on the government to address some traffic concerns in west Belconnen. I do not believe that this is the best way to specifically pick up those matters. As Mr Coe would be aware, Roads ACT operates a traffic warrant system. This ranks and prioritises various upgrades right across Canberra. I do not think the best way to choose that prioritisation is through a motion of the Assembly, and my amendments reflect that. Of course, it is appropriate for members to raise areas of concern and, again, I am more than happy for that to be done either through my office or through Canberra Connect.

But I think the best way and the fairest way to ensure that all of Canberra is treated equally is to put these upgrades through the traffic warrant system. Roads ACT will then look at the concerns, and certainly the ones that Mr Coe has raised in his motion will be looked at and will be prioritised accordingly using the traffic warrant system. Then they can be put into the list of works that need to be done in the ACT. My amendments also seek to reflect that.

So I believe these amendments broadly pick up on the intent of Mr Coe’s motion. They have specifically addressed a number of the issues that he has raised. They do not absolutely agree with all the points that he has, but I think that they are in the spirit of the conversation that Mr Coe was seeking to raise today, and I commend my amendments to the Assembly.

MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (6.01): I would like to speak briefly on these issues. The state of the roads is an abiding interest of mine and an abiding interest of many of my constituents. Mr Rattenbury has touched on the fact that I spend a bit of time giving him a hard time about failings in this. The standout one for me was when the Cotter Road and McCulloch Street intersection was closed for successive weekends. On one occasion I was in a line of about 10 cars that drove to the end of McCulloch Street to find that the Cotter Road was closed. We all did a U-turn at the last roundabout and drove back and there was nothing by way of a sign on Carruthers Street to give people any indication. I do not know how many people on that weekend did the same thing as the 10 or so people in the queue that I was in did. That road was closed for a number of weekends. There was improvement over time to the signs, which I think was a direct result of Mr Rattenbury’s intervention, and I thank him for that.

I want to dwell mostly on the issues in relation to Spofforth Street, which has been problematic for a very long time. I have received a lot of representations over speeding both on Drake Brockman Drive and Spofforth Street over the years that I


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