Page 1189 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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It is a clear choice: a plan for a visionary transport future that is integrated and offers choice or an uncosted, underdeveloped bus plan that will mean higher fares, the closure of bus stops and more congestion on our roads; and it begins with a payment of up to hundreds of millions of dollars for nothing—just to tear up contracts on a project that was committed to before the last election. I urge the Canberra Liberals to wake up and realise they will be on the wrong side of history when it comes to Canberra’s transport future.
I move the amendment circulated in my name:
Omit all words after “That this Assembly”, substitute: “notes that an integrated, modern and sustainable transport network is a priority for this Government, and that establishment of Transport Canberra is the first step in the plan to deliver this network.”.
MADAM SPEAKER: The question is that the amendment be agreed to. Mr Rattenbury, are you going to speak on this?
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (3.14): I am, thank you, Madam Speaker. I was just dealing with the interjections from Mr Coe who was heard in silence in large part, I recall, and has spent most of Ms Fitzharris’s speech interjecting across the room, once again reinforcing his and his colleagues’ reputation as some of the rudest parliamentarians in the country.
I thank you for the opportunity, though, to discuss this motion today and I really appreciate Mr Coe’s and the Liberal Party’s newfound interest in public transport.
Mr Coe: Have you got an independent review into that or not?
MR RATTENBURY: Here we go. I really appreciate Mr Coe’s newfound interest in public transport and buses because it has been a long time coming and I hope that it is a genuine commitment to sustainable transport and to an improved bus network. Given the intense hostility that Mr Coe and his colleagues have shown to buses and public transport over many years, I fear it is not a serious commitment.
Just as one example to put this motion in context, and it is one of many examples: before the last election the Greens moved a motion in this place that focused on improving buses and sustainable transport. That, of course, is something the Greens have been absolutely consistent on. Mr Hanson responded with a pretty aggressive attack on the Greens for even suggesting such a thing. Mr Hanson said:
It is bizarre that the Greens all of a sudden are starting to talk about the cost pressures of driving cars. If they are going to put a bus on every corner or a train route from every suburb into Civic, I would like to add up the cost of that.
He went on to say:
… it will be monumentally expensive … They have this view that everybody should be able to catch a bus that is going to drive past their corner every five minutes. It is fanciful, and we know that the cost of that is simply unaffordable for people of the ACT.
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