Page 189 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992
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This could also include purpose built buses for the disabled. These kinds of buses could also be used for regular connections to other modes of transport, such as rail and air. This approach could also see the retention of the 333 core service to interchanges. I am reliably informed that by just increasing the fares by 10c per person on this core service you would eliminate any losses on this type of service alone.
It is well worth observing, Madam Speaker, that commercial bus operators in the tourist industry have been using minibuses, where desirable, quite widely. The reason for this is that the commercial world has to respond to the requirements of competitiveness and cost efficiencies or it simply cannot survive. I am not advocating that ACTION purchase a fleet of minibuses or medium size buses, as it would only accelerate the financial problem.
The ACT transport system will always require considerable subsidisation; so all it wants to do is trim it around the edges, save a million here, a million there. But this is a ridiculous and hackneyed response. What it needs is a much more radical approach. There are much greater savings to be made. We do not have to be losing this kind of money.
ACTION is not a cheap transport system. The average cost of bus travel is quite surprisingly high and is, in fact, quite comparable to the cost of a taxi fare. For instance, to transport a couple of adults by bus from, say, Weston to Civic and return costs about $24.88, which is about the same as a taxi fare for the same journey. Furthermore, there are inequities in the use of government transport systems to assist the socially disadvantaged. The available figures on ACTION make it clear that the chief group to benefit from ACTION's subsidy are employed commuters and their children.
Subsidising buses benefits only those who use buses - a very small percentage of travellers - yet each household subsidises this service in the order of some $640 per year. The question that can be legitimately raised, therefore, is that each household would, I am sure, choose to spend that $640 much differently.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Westende, your time has expired.
MR LAMONT (4.05): Madam Speaker, I rise to speak with some authority about the efficiencies which this Government has been able to achieve in ACTION, despite - - -
Mr De Domenico: You.
MR LAMONT: I take that as a compliment, quite frankly.
Mrs Grassby: I would, if I were you.
MR LAMONT: I certainly do. If that means that in my previous role I was doing what I should have been doing, and that was looking after my constituents, the members of the Transport Workers Union, then I am quite proud to acknowledge that I did that, just as I am quite proud to acknowledge that in representing the constituency of Canberra I will do exactly the same thing; I will represent their views as well.
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