Page 514 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 23 March 2022
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MR STEEL: I thank the member for her question. In relation to the Gwynne Street area, we would take an evidence based approach by updating our traffic assessment data in Watson. There was a study that was undertaken in 2020 there that demonstrated that in one afternoon peak period there were around 19 pedestrians crossing over Gwynne Street and around 53 vehicles using the road around the same time.
We can go away and have a look at another survey which is also planned to happen this month, over a seven-day period, to further investigate whether rat-running is contributing to issues on the street, whether that has changed since the last survey and the number of people using the street. That will help to inform any interventions there.
In relation to the speed limits, that will also be informed by that data. But what I can say, is that there is a reason why 40 kilometre speed limits are not usually applied to areas around childcare centres, in particular, which I understand is in this locality and the reason is because we do not expect that young children in early childhood services would be walking themselves to their service, like children a little bit older—in primary school and high school, for example—might be. So those factors would be taken into account in terms of any intervention, whether it would be around changing the speed limit or other measures.
Government—procurement
MR CAIN: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Special Minister of State. Minister, why does your government not collect data or report on contracts that have been awarded to a tenderer that was not recommended by the relevant procurement panel?
MR STEEL: I thank the member for his question and the ACT government is committed to ensuring that procurement activity is fair, open and undertaken in accordance with the provisions in the Government Procurement Act and Financial Management Act, and the relevant policies and guidelines—and that includes the guidelines that we put in place around probity and procurement last year. And of course, the ACT government will respond in detail to the recent Auditor-General’s reports which have looked at this particular issue around where a delegate has departed from the recommendation of a procurement panel.
Procurement ACT does not currently receive notifications about when that occurs, but we do think that it would be useful to understand where that has occurred in the future and that will form part of the government’s response to the Auditor-General’s report and the procurement reform project which is underway.
MR CAIN: So these are reports of contracts awarded to a tenderer not recommended. Minister, could you publish that information, please?
MR STEEL: Well I will take that as a comment. But in relation to the publication of information, we do already have a contracts register where those contracts are published and are transparent. So having said that, we think that there is use in
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