Senator’s Hypocrisy

Alderman Philip Cocker today described recent calls by Senator David Bushby for the Federal Government to fund a feasibility study for a Hobart traffic tunnel as absolute hypocrisy.

“The tunnel proposal is wacky piece of populist rubbish which would waste hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars

“In November last year we had Senator Bushby issuing a prèss release attacking the Federal Government for its stimulus package and Government over spending and now we having him encouraging them to waste money on nonsense projects to get his picture in the paper, Alderman Cocker said.

“The Hobart City Council has taken the best advice available in the world on how to improve the city and if Senator Bushby wants to do something productive he should get behind the Gehl plan and lobby for funds for that and not projects from a bygone era”, Alderman Cocker said.

“The tunnel proposal would waste valuable funds at a time when we need to restructure our transport infrastructure away from single occupant carbon based vehicles to fast efficient multiple occupant public transport”.

The smart cities of the world are undertaking this change and are proving it’s success in the liveability of their cities and the public uptake of better transport options”, Alderman Cocker said.

“Senator Bushby who is chair of the Coalitiion Economics Committee would do well to bring himself up to speed on what modern effective cities are doing”, Alderman Cocker said.

“The cities with successful economies of the future are those who are moving away from a focus on cars and on to how best to move people in a carbon constrained world.

Alderman Cocker said the tunnel proposal is a project from the past that should be left in the past and we should expend our resources preparing for the challenges and opportuinities of this century.