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Despite this significant progress on the reform agenda and the achievement of budget savings, ACTION has managed to improve and extend its services. New routes have been added to the network to service the Gungahlin and South Tuggeranong growth areas and a number of commuter express services have been introduced for city commuters. Total kilometres travelled by the ACTION fleet have increased by an estimated just over two million, or about 10 per cent, between 1991-92 and today.

Mr Connolly: Well done, Labor Government.

MR HIRD: Thank you very much. We have been here for only a very short space of time and already you have congratulated us. Thank you.

Mr Kaine: The buses are already moving faster.

MR HIRD: Yes. I thank my colleague Mr Kaine. In future there will need to be more emphasis on interconnecting public transport and other services to improve convenience and accessibility to facilities and services such as child-care centres near interchanges and major stops. Ultimately, we want a seamless transport system where people can move efficiently through one or more types of vehicles and get where they want to go more cheaply or more efficiently than by private car. It is therefore essential that the planning not only for Gungahlin but across the Territory should specifically address transport impact and the broader budgetary implications of planning decisions. We should be sending clear signals to the community about the high infrastructure costs associated with new development.

Ms Tucker should note that the Government will set the standards, thereby protecting the users, and service providers will follow a user-provider model. That is not to say that we will lose Canberra's unique character as a quality place in which to live. In fact, we will enhance what we have and build a boutique city for the future comfort and enjoyment of our children and their children.

MR CONNOLLY (4.24): Mr Speaker, I would like briefly to enter this debate to thank Mr Hird for so kindly and conveniently setting out the very significant achievements of my former colleague, Mr Lamont, and me over the period of the Labor Government, when we were each Minister for Urban Services. The record of reform that Mr Hird read out is a truly impressive one and a very significant turnaround. One can only hope that, when you have been tested in action, you can come even close to the process of reform we achieved in that period.

MR BERRY (4.24): As my colleagues Mr Connolly and Mr Whitecross have mentioned, Labor's agenda in relation to public transport has been one of commitment to those community service obligations the community has demanded for a long time in the ACT. Particularly for those people who are unable to afford private transport, Labor has provided an accessible, reasonably costed public transport system, and it improved all through the period of the Labor Government. One of the big tests for the Liberals opposite is how they are going to maintain that service, with their particular ideology on

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