Page 781 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 5 April 2022
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Canberra Show and the Celebrate Gungahlin community event; and holding weekly assemblies and celebrating Hindu festivals at various locations for over a decade. Now and for the last six years these have been held at the Ngunnawal Primary School.
For many years BAPS has teamed up with the Hindu Council of Australia to present the annual Diwali, or Festival of Lights, and Annakut, the Festival of Gratitude, and exhibitions at the Australian parliament. The BAPS Hindu mandir or temple and community centre in Canberra is the vision of His Holiness Mahant Swami Maharaj. His Holiness visited Canberra in October 1997. The BAPS volunteers in Canberra will then have a base, when the completion of the BAPS Hindu mandir or temple is completed. It is about to begin construction, I believe just this week, in Taylor. That temple and community centre hopefully will be opened in the second half of 2023. BAPS is looking forward to providing even greater community service activities then.
There are many volunteers who can be acknowledged, and I do not have time to mention them all, but I will mention a couple: Ms Twinkle Brahmbhatt, Ms Nayna Patel, Ms Komel Gondaliya, Ms Harshita Kakkad and Ms Chaitali Shah, Mr Vivek Brahmbhatt, Mr Hari Krishna Patel, Mr Dipak Gondaliya, Mr Hiren Raval, Mr Parag Shah, Ms Chai Chobani, and Mr Sitesh Goshani. Thank you to everyone involved at BAPS Canberra for all of the work you do for our community.
Roads—maintenance
MR CAIN (Ginninderra) (4.50): I have an unfortunate topic to speak of and I do not think the government is going to enjoy my adjournment address. I keep getting expressions of concern from my electorate about the state of the roads, in particular the potholes. Over the last few months this has been continuing from the residents in Ginninderra. It is not just the potholes; it is how poorly repaired they are, just waiting to open up yet again. I do not know if any of the other local members have noticed this, but heading from the Belconnen Mall side of Southern Cross Drive, turning right onto Coulter Drive, which then takes you north down the Ginninderra highway, at that very major intersection, as one turns right, you have to steer over or past a very sizeable depression, a poorly repaired pothole.
The things that I have been hearing about from my constituents include damage to vehicles that reduces their durability. There are certainly safety concerns being expressed. Frankly, it is just a sign of a lack of care and competence from a government that they are paying a lot of money to, through their rates and other taxes. It is a discouragement to businesses and to parking because there are some places where you just cannot park. You have to be careful how you park, even.
The other aesthetic side of all of this is that I think Canberrans deserve beautiful infrastructure—not unsightly infrastructure but beautiful infrastructure—and they are not getting it from the Labor-Greens government. I have rather reluctantly come to the conclusion that this Labor-Greens government is the worst service delivery government the territory has had since self-government. It is the worst service delivery government we have had in the territory since self-government.
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