Page 1210 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 4 May 2022
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(d) Transport Canberra’s enterprise agreement does not support workplace flexibility. It reflects historic work patterns of Monday to Friday work for full-time permanent bus drivers. A full-time bus driver who wants to work on weekends must either become a casual employee or increase their working week to six or more days. This does not provide modern workforce flexibility, does not match government commitments to flexible working arrangements, does not allow parents and carers to make permanent care arrangements around work and does not support hourly weekend services or weekend reliability; and
(e) around Australia, other public transport operators and service sector employers provide a range of alternative working structures which enable flexible working hours, such as:
(i) a work roster that includes permanent part-time positions involving fewer than five working days such as Tuesday to Thursday; and
(ii) a permanent position that involves a five day work week, or a short work week, which may include weekend days as part of the standard roster, such as Tuesday to Saturday (five days) or Sunday to Wednesday (four days); and
(3) calls on the ACT Government to:
(a) expand Transport Canberra’s workforce to provide enough drivers to return to the regular timetable as soon as possible this year;
(b) pursue an outcome through the current enterprise bargaining processes which can achieve the Government’s previous commitment for hourly route bus services all weekend, from 2023;
(c) develop a Women in Transport Program and target to increase the percentage of women across Transport Canberra in driver roles;
(d) work with the Transport Worker’s Union as an employee representative, and Transport Canberra staff directly, to give new and existing drivers the option to work full or part-time without having to work a Monday to Friday work week; and
(e) update the Assembly by the first sitting day in 2023 on this motion.
I rise today to speak on the motion circulated in my name, on buses in the ACT. We are in a climate emergency, and that is the only reason I am here. Over the last decade I have done whatever I can to grapple with this. I have changed my lifestyle, I have run climate and recycling projects and I have joined the activist movement. Now I am in parliament in order to make every single decision a climate decision, and today is a great day for another one.
We need really good public transport. This is so important. It was one of the things singled out by the IPCC this year as a way to fight climate change. We need a better bus service that gets Canberrans to where they need to go, when they need to get there. This is a part of our efforts to decarbonise our economy. Here in the ACT we have done good work so far. We are powered by 100 per cent renewable electricity. We have built the first stage of our light rail network, which is running on that renewable electricity. We have an EV strategy, an EV loan scheme, an EV charging station plan and an EV business fleet advice service to support it.
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