ACT budget 2007-2008

As a further observation it also looks like housing in the Molonglo Valley is all go now, with money allocated in this budget for creating the North Weston Pond on Weston Creek to catch building runoff, as well as planning commencing on the major roads in the new suburbs.

more money on building carparks than for public transport – 16 mil v 29 mil (from memory).

i think that neratly encapsulates this gummints approach to public transprt.

sustainable transport policy MY ARSE.

$60.7M for the Gungahlin College and $3.8M for the Harrison sports fields (really an adjunct to the Harrison school now under construction so ws a given I guess).
These will help a lot having them locked in.
The allocation for 8 new buses (replacing old ones – not adding to the fleet) is good but unsure if that is all in this year – if so that’s a good outcome as Hargreaves said only 4 per year would be done.

It would appear with plenty in the kitty in the way of a surplus and the high likelihood of additional surpluses above their conservative estimates, they are setting themselves up for largess come the election budget…

Some of the big winners are public schools, public transport and parking at the hospitals. Calvary Hospital didn’t get any money to fix their parking problems. Probably because the Little Company of Mary is trying to buy the hospital from the government and run it as a privatly owned health care facility.

Why don’t people call the dome by its real name. It is the “Duby Dome”, remember him, Craig Duby? That thing has lasted a very long time, it would have been about 1990 when it first went in. Back then it went in every winter and out for summer. As for the budget doesn’t look too bad, although the ’emotive’ comment in the first post about fixing the wrongs of closing schools, well look at it this way, the benifits of closing those schools can now be directed in improving the schools that are left, that was the whole idea of them, re-investing that money elsewhere.

That’s great if they are going to re-furb Civic pool. It is looking very very tired – and kind of mossy.

I like the idea of the garden. Uses less water than GDE.

How much will he spend ripping out that pointless bloody garden he’s wasting water on near spaghetti junction? I hate hypocrites, and Nohope is one of the worst.

I see that there will still be 4 buses an hour at the bust stop near my place, and they will all arrive between 12 and 16 minutes after the hour.

caf: Reading the detail of the pool thing, it looks like they’re trying to figure out how to improve it for foreseen increase in use as more people start to live in Civic, rather than trying to figure out how to justify shutting it down. Especially since they’re coughing another $2M to replace the air dome over the top of it.

Did it say what they’re planning for Melba shops? Hope they’re improving the parking situation…