Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Building light rail in Hobart would link communities, reduce road traffic congestion, ease the cost of living and help clean up the environment. And it could be easily achieved because the land corridor is there, the community want it and the media is on board. Indeed, a recent opinion poll put support for light rail at 62 per cent in Denison, and the Mercury seems keen to promote the venture. So the fact that Hobart still does not have light rail really does beggar belief. It is, I regret to say, yet another symbol of the long-running failure of governance in Tasmania, and of too many lazy and incompetent politicians.

Of course, it should never have come to this, especially when you consider that between 2010 and 2013, there were Labor power-sharing parliaments simultaneously in Canberra and Hobart. But did anything ever come of that? Of course not, even though Labor and Greens candidates promised light rail at the 2010 state election, a Greens Minister for Sustainable Transport was elected, and I pleaded with the state government repeatedly to ask the federal government for funding. More recently, the Liberal state government has at least pledged to reserve the land corridor and that is a good thing, at least as far as it goes. But even then, it is hard to detect much genuine interest in the project, which is unsurprising when you consider the bureaucracy and the Premier's key advisers are captive to road transport and happy to heavily subsidise the metro bus services.

Where to from here? Well, for a start, it will not be good enough to leave this until the next state election, when we run the risk of candidates, naively or wilfully, again promising light rail and again failing to deliver. Frankly, I see an opportunity, a big opportunity, for the current state government because this is a wonderful opportunity for the Premier, Will Hodgman, to stand up and show some vision and leadership, to deliver what Labor and the Greens didn't, and to finally build the mass transit system essential for significant urban growth and economic development. Indeed, if we are going to build the Hobart of tomorrow, then we need to show that sort of vision. Only then, along with projects like the university's move into the city and its visionary STEM project and the redevelopment of Macquarie Point, the largest brownfield site in any capital city in the country, will we genuinely be putting down the new foundations of one of the world's great cities.

In closing, I say: let's just build the thing and let's do it now while we have a Prime Minister who appreciates the value of rail and who is open-minded about finally restoring passenger rail in Hobart.

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