Corner:

The main concerns of the Save Our Sydney Foundation and local residents were the way that the alternative was chosen, the lack of consideration of other alternatives, the problems that were going to be caused by the funnelling of additional traffic through a bottleneck, the bottleneck of North Sydney, the fact that we'd be spending vast amounts of public money on a project that really didn't solve the problem.

Mack:

Well I think that the proposal for Sydney Harbour Tunnel was actually agreed politically some years before it was ever known publicly.

Corner:

The EIS was a document that was put together to justify a decision that was already made.

Morrison:

I think that one of the ways of improving that system is to open up the whole decision-making process, that is, to allow greater public participation in transport planning and planning for Sydney at a much earlier stage. That it really isn't acceptable to the community any more to be presented with a fait accompli and to be asked to make a submission.

Judd:

There were a whole series of submissions received as part of the EIS. From memory I think there was about 450 of them. Each one was reviewed to see exactly what the content was and then every area in that was addressed.

Smyth:

There was no opportunity for people who objected to the Tunnel to appeal. The government in making its decision to proceed with the project decided to bring forward legislation that tidied up any loose ends one might say and removed any rights of appeal.

Mack:

In New South Wales I guess there's a long history of bizarre legislation but the Sydney Harbour Tunnel Act probably was the daddy of them all. It was introduced at about 1 am in the morning as I remember. It virtually wiped all other legislation in respect of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel and gave all power to the Minister.

Toon:

If one considers whether governments should or should not have the power to pass special legislation, of course they have, there's no doubt that government can pass any legislation it wants. I think though it circumvents the intention of the legislation which was that not only should environmental considerations be weighed properly in development proposals but that the public should be able to comment and review and indeed assess those development proposals.

Corner:

The Liberal Party campaigned in this electorate on the basis that if Greiner was elected he would stop work on the Tunnel, hold a public inquiry and publicly review the contract. None of those things happened with some fairly feeble justification.

Nick Greiner, as Premier:

What Labour has effectively done is to hog tie us in such a way that both the government and the people have no option other than to continue with the Tunnel.