Page 2738 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
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The work and the recent great successes that we have enjoyed in tourism, I think, are largely due to the ACT Tourism Commission. They are having a dramatic and very visible effect, I think, on improving the image of the ACT and promoting our Territory amongst visitors and amongst other Australians. Their most sustained effort is on the tourism marketing side, and that is complemented by the work of the business development and marketing branch of my own department. Through those agencies we are promoting the ACT as a very new, innovative and responsible partner in the Australian federation, as well as a destination for tourism and for business, and that is what lies at the heart of those promotional efforts. Like Mr De Domenico, I have received a letter from the Meetings Industry Association. I hope that the producers of 60 Minutes take that kind of criticism from the business community to heart. I think that it is only through the hip pocket that you can attempt to influence some of these people. Madam Speaker, much of the activity that the Government is undertaking is supported by ACT business, and I certainly welcome their participation as well.
I want to detail some of the errors that Mr Carleton has made. The most glaring one was that he failed to distinguish between the ACT and the Commonwealth public services, and their respective very clear local and national focuses. He also distorted or failed to check facts on a number of issues. In relation to ACTION, he has mistaken the ACT funded bus service, ACTION, as a cost to all taxpayers, and clearly that is not the case. Like all such State level services in Australia, ACTION is funded solely by the citizens of the community that it serves, and that is the ACT community. While the bus fleet is in good repair - and why would it not be? - our bus replacement program has been a direct result of the ageing of the fleet, and that has been directly caused by earlier Commonwealth government decisions. The replacement buses in our fleet were chosen in a competitive tendering process and I believe that they represent good value for money. I repeat, Madam Speaker, that ACTION is not funded by Australian taxpayers, and the subsidy level is not $2.90 per passenger as Mr Carleton claimed, but $2.20, which is paid by the ACT Government and ultimately, of course, by ACT citizens, not the rest of Australia. The subsidy is not $750 per household per year, as Mr Carleton claims. He has that figure wrong as well.
In relation to public use of ACTION services, Mr Carleton's claim that only 7 per cent of commuters use ACTION buses should be taken with a grain of salt. Their use varies between population segments, depending on the client group; but data on passenger boardings from a recent survey showed that ACTION carries about 20 per cent of commuters to the city area. Madam Speaker, Mr Carleton also suggested that it would be just as cheap for ACT people to use taxis. That clearly is hyperbole. It is just an idiotic statement. It shows very little understanding of basic numbers, let alone economics. An ACT bus carries 110 people in a peak period. Somebody accepting Mr Carleton's advice that it would be cheaper to catch, for example, a $13 taxi from Woden to Civic needs very serious help on the numeracy side, I suggest.
Mr Kaine: It would be okay if the taxi were big enough to take more passengers.
MS FOLLETT: A 110-seat taxi. Madam Speaker, Mr Carleton also raised the matter of Mr Russell's grazing on Red Hill. I know that this is a sensitive issue. Mr Russell is indeed a treasured Canberra institution. The Government acknowledges, Madam Speaker, that he is as much an ACT institution as Red Hill is part of the Canberra Nature Park; but for conservation and aesthetic reasons
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