Page 1187 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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Their plan is a failure of imagination and a failure of policy. What they cannot imagine, let alone plan for, is a city where people have more transport choice, to move around the city more easily with an integrated transport network, mixing modes and giving people more choice in how they get around safely, conveniently and efficiently. In stark contrast, this government has a vision and a plan to deliver this for the Canberra community.
The introduction of light rail will also free up capacity for our bus network. Yes, there will be 1.2 million kilometres of bus travel that we will be able to redeploy across our city. With light rail we are adding significantly to our transport network, redeploying buses to other parts of our city, and transport Canberra will be responsible for designing the network to allocate these kilometres in the most effective way possible: not just nice coloured lines on a sheet of paper; we will design a real bus network that is based on actual patronage and that will meet the needs of customers all over Canberra.
While it is good to see that the Canberra Liberals’ bus plan builds on the rapid network introduced and improved by this government, have they thought about patronage and flexibility? What happens when a pink bus breaks down and there is only a yellow bus available? What do they do then? How do they pay for their inflexibility?
What we have from the Canberra Liberals, let me be clear, is a massively undercosted bus plan, nothing more. It is impossible for the Canberra community to understand how much their idea will cost and I am sure this is because the Canberra Liberals do not know how much this will cost. But what I do know is that they will have to pay up to hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to tear up a contract.
Let us be very clear about the implications of that. One, it is Abbott-style politics at its worst: decide what you are opposed to, lock it in and do not blink —negativity and fear. And do we know what that looks like in practice? Yes we do. We saw the devastation of the Abbott government.
Two, it is dishonest because this was an issue clearly taken to the election by ACT Labor. Does Mr Coe really think that if he takes a plan to the community later this year he would be expected to renege on that agreement during a term of government? No he would not. Can I add that his former leader was very open to considering light rail in order to form government. He clearly accepted the mandate that Labor had to form government based on a commitment to build light rail.
Thirdly, it will do enormous damage to our economic reputation. We need investment in our city and we are working hard to achieve that under the Chief Minister’s leadership. Those opposite will rip up a contract costing up to hundreds of millions of dollars to the Canberra community, and very rightly major investors are concerned about what this means to their businesses. How can they have confidence in the ACT? How will they attract investment to the city if the Canberra Liberals have their way?
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