Page 4472 - Week 15 - Thursday, 22 November 1990
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I would like to ask the Minister: in this money that is being spent on public transport - I tried to get an answer in the Estimates Committee hearing, but I did not seem to be able to get it - what is happening in the way of a plan for public transport in Canberra? Is there money for it in this allocation of $66,965,900 that is to be agreed to by us now? Is there any plan at all?
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (11.44): Once again, I note that this is hardly a debate but more like a series of questions. It is like a repeat of the Estimate Committee hearing. I am trying to remember precisely the terms of the answers that were given in the Estimates Committee hearing to these questions which Mrs Grassby is well aware were answered fully.
Currently a number of plans relating to a transport strategy within the ACT are in place, and they will be reporting shortly. We currently have a team of consultants who are reviewing traffic arrangements through and around the Civic area so that people who wish to travel from one side of Civic to the other may be able to do so without having to pass through the congested central city area, thus relieving congestion in that place. It relates not only to Civic but also to other town centres.
It really cannot be effective for the Civic area until the remedial works at the corner of Wakefield Avenue and Limestone Avenue have been finalised and the traffic around Civic reverts to its normal flow patterns. The work at that intersection was held up for some considerable time. It would have been finished by now if it had not been for industrial action taken by many of Mrs Grassby's comrades.
In addition to that, at the moment we are conducting a review of traffic flows which apply to ACTION buses and public transport within the ACT, to determine ways in which the quality of service in the provision of ACTION buses and bus transit times can be increased. That review is currently under way and will be completed early in the new year.
Finally, there is the general transport strategy that the Government released earlier this year. It is about transport generally within the ACT. All of these matters, as I said, are addressing the issue, and, in my view, all matters relating to transport are being handled quite responsibly.
I notice that Mrs Grassby does not seem to have any objection to the level of expenditure on this program. I take it that, by her omission, she supports those measures.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
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