3 July 2006

Dragway a no-go

| johnboy
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Deb Foskey has put out a triumphant media release on the discomfort of Andrew Barr in Estimates trying to explain the Government’s dragway policies. Or the lack thereof.

“Today in Estimates I asked the Minister Mr Barr for the Government’s feasibility study on the economics of establishing a dragway on Majura Road. He was unable to provide any up-to-date data on its economic viability.”

“Mr Barr stated that the Govt would allocate no more than $8m to its establishment. He did not know whether this included the cost of purchasing the land.”

Poor Andrew’s obviously been too busy answering our questions and closing schools to keep up to date with the dragway.

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Great suggestion bonfire! Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t those smash-em-up derbys usually feature a couple of old caravans being dragged around in the mud? Sounds perfect to me.

They have to resume/pay for the property it is on, build roads to it from Majura road etc. They were going to dig it 5m into the earth as a sound barrier, but have already run out of money to do that. I don’t know what the other costs are.

I can’t even see why they need 8 million? Old one had a pile of dirt, some bleacher seating, a few atco huts, a strip of bitumen, some barriers and some lights. And a very noisy PA system.

a genuine concern or a canard flown by anti-dragway zealots in the hope they will triumph over sanity and reason.

I think Deb asked the question about the financial viability of the dragway because there is a genuine concern that it will cost the ACT a fortune for the forseeable future. Not just to embarass Andy B. Who should have known the answer anyway – he was asked teh same question 2 weeks ago on radio and said he’s look into it.

Andrew B also got to announce the gutting of canberra tourism under his tourism portfolio.

… but who isn’t any more.

they could just drag the caravans to one of the soon to be disused school ovals.

tada!

problem solved

well, one anyway.

i think foskey is preaching to the choir here. her constituency do not and never will support any form of mototsport in the act.

i think tripping up a new minister who is already barely coping is hardly worthy of a press release.

and asking questiosn regarding fiscal appropriateness is a tough one coming from a highly paid pollie who was sitting in a subsidised house in one of canberras better suburbs.

I have to admit that I’ve been wondering if Sonic felt threatened by Andy, and by handing him such a tough portfolio Sonic is hoping to destroy his career in politics before it really gets rolling.

Yep. Close the schools and the poor-peoples’ van park, but open a dragway. Nasty juxtaposition, that one. A very hard sell.

Well, as poisoned chalices go, Andrew’s certianly been given his share. The eduation cutbacks and the dragway were both pretty much set in stone before he came on board.

Admittedly, his job is now to stand in front of ’em and sell them, but when the products are as manifestly unattractive as these two, even the slickest, most charasmatic pollie is going to struggle a bit. And Andrew, bless his cotton socks, ain’t that slick or that charasmatic.

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