Page 187 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992
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direction - expenditure was up, staff numbers were up, services were down in terms of the number of buses on the road, subsidy levels were up, and everything was going out of control. The figures to date are all trending back in the right direction.
We have staff numbers down while still employing our apprentices. We have the number of buses up. We have the real subsidy back to where it was originally and trending in the right direction. We have a new network about to start which will provide even more services, particularly in the southern areas of Canberra in Tuggeranong, where they are most needed, where the dynamic growth sector is, and we have plans to get service into Gungahlin - all within existing resources.
Madam Speaker, this MPI is a joke. To suggest that the figures show that Labor cannot manage the system is farcical. What the figures show, what this report that Mr De Domenico got so excited about shows, is that during the period when Mr Kaine was in charge the system was in chaos. We are getting it right.
MR WESTENDE (3.55): Madam Speaker, first of all, congratulations on your inaugural address. It certainly was refreshing. I would like to remind Mr Connolly, when he continually refers to the Liberal Opposition, that we now have a Liberal Opposition, not a combination of Liberal and Alliance. I think you will see a different sort of attitude and a different sort of Opposition from what you had before.
Madam Speaker, there can be no doubt that the ACTION bus service must undergo a process of rationalisation. Apart from the plain commonsense approach to this, the ACT can surely ill afford unnecessary demands on the public purse when there are so many more programs deserving of funding. The ACT Government would know the shortfalls in meeting so many more important programs.
The Follett Labor Government has indicated its intention to pursue rationalisation of the ACTION bus service, and the Opposition is fully supportive of this approach. We would, however, approach it differently and much more radically. We, as a government, would reduce as much as possible any need for subsidy, and I will come to this point in a moment. Nevertheless, the Government is correct in its stated intention to reduce the deficiency.
The point of concern, however, Madam Speaker, is whether these good intentions of the Government can be converted to good and productive actions. If the TWU realises that the Government is not prepared to make the necessary reforms it will continue to get away with the kind of inane action it took last week. Within only its first two weeks of office the Government has been confronted by the TWU. The union has made its intentions known and has signalled to the Government that it is not prepared to toe the line with respect to the necessity to tighten up the ACTION bus service.
The Government appeared powerless to do anything about it. In fact, for several days the union would not even provide the reasons for the dispute; nor, indeed, did it give any prior warning or notification to the Government or, even more importantly, to the commuting public. This clearly reveals that the union has certainly lost sight of cooperation both with the Labor Government and with the ACT public. This raises great doubt as to whether this Government is prepared to make the necessary hard decisions and, more importantly, to implement them.
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