Page168 - Week 01 - Thursday, 3 December 2020
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MR PARTON: Minister, why have you failed to manage this upgrade to your own announced time line, and did you ever believe that this could be delivered to the time line that you announced?
MR STEEL: I thank the member for his question. I am not sure that it is quite valid under standing orders to ask for a statement of opinion, but I can say that we are going through this process. Of course we would have hoped to have had a new ticketing system by now, but we have had a major global pandemic in which this procurement has been occurring, and a range of factors have come into play in relation to this procurement.
I look forward to updating the community and the Assembly, once that procurement has been finalised, on the future of a ticketing system in the ACT, which the ACT government is committed to delivering to make sure that we remove barriers for people using public transport through better ticketing options, with a range of different options to access public transport, rather than just using the legacy MyWay system.
Schools—maintenance
MR CAIN: My question is to the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs. Minister, in a recent Canberra Times article it was reported that parents are worried that a lack of funding and long-term vision for school maintenance could put students and staff at risk. The ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations president was quoted as saying:
Parents are worried that rectification work only fixes what’s crumbling or what is most immediately placing kids and staff at risk. We aren’t getting ahead of this problem or planning long term.
Minister, why are you not planning long term, or is the P&C council president wrong?
MS BERRY: On infrastructure and the maintenance of our public schools, the ACT government and the Education Directorate take expert advice from people in the field who understand the issues and can provide advice to the Education Directorate on how to best manage it. I work very closely with the P&C, and have for the last three years, particularly this year. There have been many challenges for our community. The P&C president who has just finished up—Kirsty McGovern-Hooley, who has now been replaced—and the ACT government worked very closely together. We are all very proud of our public schools and we want to make sure that they are the best possible places—
Mr Hanson: Madam Speaker, on a point of order on relevance, the question was: “Why are you not planning long term?” That was the question, not whether she worked well with the P&C.
MADAM SPEAKER: The minister has a minute left to respond to the question.
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