Page 4253 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 27 November 2013
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MADAM SPEAKER: Stop the clock. I uphold the point of order. I have already called Mr Hanson to order on at least one occasion. It is true, Mr Hanson, that you were heard in relative silence. While we are on the point of order, as I have made the point before, I do not believe that debates in this place should be conducted in silence, except for maiden speeches and the like, and important milestone speeches. But I do take the point on this occasion that Mr Hanson has been chirping.
Mr Hanson: Excessively chirping.
MADAM SPEAKER: It could be considered that he may not have been, but I do think he has been considered chirpy.
MR CORBELL: Disorderly.
MADAM SPEAKER: I do not need to take guidance from you, Mr Corbell, about when someone is being disorderly. I uphold the point of order.
MR CORBELL: Those are the underpinning reasons why this decision to build LRT is so important: good benefit-cost ratio; good capacity to capture value uplift; good capacity to reinforce the territory’s overall planning strategies. And the government is getting on with the job. We have established the Capital Metro Agency. Mr Gentleman highlighted that we have made significant investments in its capacity. Large-scale public infrastructure projects must be delivered by people with the experience and the capacity in the field with these types of projects. We are engaging those and paying them commensurate with what they would be paid for similar large-scale infrastructure projects. That demonstrates that the government is serious about delivering this project.
We have seen some good steps in recent days. The government has engaged in the light rail integration study. We have seen a very strong public response to this study. We had an online survey open to the public from 26 September to 15 November this year. Over 440 responses were received from right across the city. Respondents have indicated that the three most important factors influencing their use of public transport were good travel times, reliability and frequency. Also, what we saw with 75 per cent of respondents indicated they would be more likely to catch the light rail over the existing red rapid bus corridor. This is testament to the evidence we know exists and which we have outlined previously—that more people are inclined to consider public transport with LRT in place.
We continue to engage closely with the community. We continue to look at issues around station design and location and integration with bus, cycle and walking networks. These are all important considerations.
I come back again to this corridor and why LRT is important for this corridor. The project corridor is experiencing an average annual growth rate of 6.8 per cent. That is over five times the population growth rate for the rest of the city and that is expected to continue. The population of Gungahlin is expected to reach 73,000 people by 2021, a growth rate of 70 per cent in only a decade. At the moment in Gungahlin nine out of
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