Page 2014 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 June 2015
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Children and Young People and Minister for Ageing) (6.00): I was referring to 1,177 hectares of grass mowed in parks and on public land; 121 playgrounds, with programs on upkeep and maintenance around Tuggeranong; and 487,973 items loaned at the Tuggeranong and Erindale libraries.
On education for Tuggeranong, the government is delivering $1.1 billion this year. This funds 8,046 students and 830 teachers in 20 public schools. Education issues in the budget for Tuggeranong include $6.5 million for the Caroline Chisholm centre for innovation and learning, teaching for the future by specialising in science, technology, engineering and mathematics; $10.7 million for the CIT in Tuggeranong, with a brand-new CIT campus for Canberra’s southern suburbs; and $600,000 for a purpose-built learning support unit at Gowrie.
I have talked about the duplication of Ashley Drive. Tuggeranong will take a share in $19.5 million in funding on road maintenance programs across the ACT. While we are on the subject of roads across the territory, I want to talk about roads, especially the conversation that we have had today in regard to the work for the Barton Highway and Gundaroo Drive. As you are aware, we have announced $10 million for the roundabout signalisation work for the Barton Highway and Gundaroo Drive to reduce congestion for that area and to assist residents of Gungahlin and, of course, Crace to get onto the Barton Highway with ease.
During those discussions, we heard from members opposite, Mr Coe in particular. He indicated that he has seen evidence of traffic delay should this process go ahead. He has quoted figures of 316 seconds of delay after the project is completed. It appears that Mr Coe has the wrong end of the table that was produced to model the traffic delays for the particular intersection. That modelling of 316 seconds in 2021 shows delay basically if we do not do anything at the roundabout. The option that we have chosen is to signalise the roundabout, put extra lanes in and ensure that buses flow freely through that roundabout. The delay in that option is 50 seconds. After all the work that we do on signalisation and lane work for the roundabout, the approach delay will be 50 seconds, not 316 seconds.
The half-baked plan the Liberals have for the Barton-Gundaroo flyover is not only underfunded by $20 million but has been designed by Mr Coe, who obviously cannot even read a modelling table on the traffic flows for the exact same intersection we are working on. He is out by 266 seconds in his engineering calculations. Their plan for a $50 million flyover to overcome a 50-second delay is quite expensive. In fact, if you extrapolate that out, it is $1 million of expenditure per second. That is the Liberals’ plan—to spend $1 million for a second of delay. I am sure the rest of Canberra is going to be very interested in that level of expenditure. There will be some requests for flyovers right across town, I would imagine.
Going back to my electorate of Tuggeranong, the urban renewal for Tuggeranong will revitalise Tuggeranong shopping centres, playgrounds and shared spaces. The government will be providing for Tuggeranong over $2 million for renewal projects in Kambah, Erindale and the Tuggeranong town centre. That will include cycleways, footpaths and landscaping upgrades. There will be more mowing, tree pruning, weeding, graffiti removal and prevention across Tuggeranong suburbs. Also, there
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