Page 2754 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 16 September 2014
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That is what responsible governments do. That is what communities tell us they want. They want leaders to take decisions that are in the long term. They get sick of just election cycle decisions; they want us to take decisions that are in the long term.
This week we have heard from those opposite a lot of commentary that we need to focus on health and education. I come back to my earlier comments: the government is focused on delivering on health and education, but we must deliver in these other areas as well. And I see transport infrastructure as a key priority for quality of life in this city.
The Mr Fluffy issue probably does not need extra commentary from me at this point. The Chief Minister has spoken about that, and there has been a lot of public discussion. There is no doubt that we must deal with that issue. We have a large number of householders or families across this city—home owners, renters—who have been affected by this legacy. It has now become very clear to us that the clean-up that was previously done was not adequate. The evidence now shows that further steps must be taken. I share the sentiment that we should deal with this once and for all. We cannot leave it to some other government to have to deal with it again in the future, and we cannot leave people affected by it in some sort of half-fixed situation or in some sort of limbo situation. We need to come up with a clear solution that deals with it for the long term.
One of the elements I am concerned about when it comes to talking about priorities is the parochialism that we see creeping into the criticism of light rail. I think it is a concern. The first stage of light rail is from Gungahlin to the city. It services that particular part of Canberra, with a particular emphasis, but there is a clear commitment to continue to build across the rest of the city.
It has to be built somewhere first. I would be interested to see what happened if we built it down Mr Coe’s preferred route from Belconnen to the city. Would he be in here saying, “What about the rest of Canberra?” If we had chosen to build it first, if the best decision had been to build it, from Fyshwick-Kingston through the parliamentary triangle into the city, would Mr Doszpot be in here saying, “That is not okay”? That is his preferred area, the inner south. Would he be saying, “It is okay because it is my area”? What about the rest of it? This sort of parochialism is not a basis for public policy; it is simply parochialism. We have to start somewhere.
We cannot simply make policy decisions on those bases. Otherwise we will end up with a situation where other members will come here and say, “Clean up Lake Tuggeranong,” or “I live on the north side; I do not ever use Lake Tuggeranong; why spend money on that?” That is the equivalent sort of thing. Or there is the Tuggeranong health centre. Will people say, “I live on the north side; I will go to health services on the north side of the lake; don’t worry about the Tuggeranong health centre”? What about the new emergency services station at Charnwood? “My house is in Woden. I will never need a fire truck from Charnwood, so don’t worry about it.”
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