Page 3721 - Week 12 - Thursday, 25 November 2021
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Finally, I would like to thank Anna Gurnhill from my office for the work she has done in coordinating this campaign and for her contribution to positive active travel outcomes in the ACT.
I call on this Assembly to call on the ACT government to note the Her Way report recommendations, including the comments and input provided by community members. I further call on the ACT government to seek to incorporate the 43 recommendations, wherever possible, in existing and future programs for work, including initiatives of the light rail stage 2 disruption task force; the active travel infrastructure, initiatives and behaviour change programs; public transport design and delivery; urban planning design and delivery—incorporating a range of user perspectives in those activities, programs, projects and initiatives.
I also welcome the opportunity to remain involved in considerations by the ACT government which relate to the purpose, objective and recommendations in the Her Way recommendation report.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (3.07): We will not be opposing this motion. There are some really cool things in this report. There are some really good things in this report, but I have to ask what it is doing in this chamber in this form. We need to get a full understanding of what is going on here, because this is Dr Paterson’s report. She is a part of the government, and coming down here and asking your colleagues, when you have the numbers, to endorse the report is a bit like getting your mother to write you a reference for a job. Your mum is probably going to say that you are great!
Dr Paterson was elected as an MLA in the election of 2020. She is a representative of one of the governing parties. As a member of one of those governing parties, she has the ability to bring policy ideas to the table. She has the ability to go out in the community, survey people, and do research on all manner of things—and she is actually pretty good at that, as we can see in this report—and to bring those things back to her party. I would have thought that is accepted practice for us.
So, although I commend Dr Paterson for conducting this research, I am not quite sure why we are debating it in a motion. From my understanding of the motion, we are in the chamber today, voting on whether Dr Paterson’s own party should listen to anything that she says. I do not know if this is a confidence thing, because Dr Paterson always strikes me as being quite confident. I do not know if there is factional trouble. I am just not sure. I do not know, but maybe there are those in the Labor Party who do not care to listen to Dr Paterson, and maybe her belief is that if she can get the Liberals to back her up in the chamber—and we are backing her up—then whoever her detractors are, will be forced to listen. I do not know who it is—whether it is Mr Gentleman who just will not listen or whether it is Mr Steel, given that they share an electorate. I know it can get a little bit like the Hunger Games, given that scenario.
Dr Paterson’s report has given the minister an absolute bath, hasn’t it? It savages the transport minister in a number of ways. Dr Paterson’s report does not seek to water down the comments from constituents. Dr Paterson is an academic, very clearly, and
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