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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 2808 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

It would be easy to argue for the increase in fares if a better service was the result, but there is no indication that there is actually a better service. The Liberal policy did state that a Liberal government would improve services and increase flexibility to respond to the needs of passengers. In fact, Liberal Party policy guaranteed - yes, that was the word, "guaranteed" - that not only would there be no reduction in the level of services to Canberra commuters, but also the services would improve through greater innovation and the flexibility of operators to respond to changing demand. This Government has been in place for 18 months and we are still sitting around waiting for some of those things to occur.

What happened to this comprehensive public transport policy? The Minister actually had nice little pictures on it: "Safe, Reliable and Affordable". Do you remember the one with the aeroplane on the front? It said:

A key objective of the Canberra Liberals is therefore to ensure that passenger and freight services, whether public or private, both within the ACT and between the ACT and other centres, make the greatest contribution possible to the standard of living in the ACT.

It talked about "urging the Commonwealth and New South Wales governments to upgrade arterial roads linking the ACT with major centres, and offering to contribute part of the cost". I quote again from a page with a picture of a bus on the front:

Huge savings could be made with no reduction in the standard of service.

For example, according to the 1993 Travers Morgan study, ACTION could save $38 million if it were run like an average private bus company, while still performing its community service obligations.

The Liberals wound up talking about a $27m saving. One wonders about this comprehensive policy. A comprehensive policy is one that involves coordination - and that was the promise - coordination of buses and other forms of public transport, coordination of trains to Sydney and Melbourne. We know that still under consideration are issues of the VFT, the Maglev and the Tilt-train, and of course there is some coordination to be done there with other governments.

Then we have the international freight airport and the international airport. We have not heard quite how these are going to assist in improving the environment around Canberra, but we are sure that they are going to happen. There are many Canberrans who are reluctant about this; but, on the other hand, Goulburn, just down the road, 20 minutes by very fast train or Maglev, is crying out for an international airport, and with a reasonable perspective. Maybe that is the appropriate way to go. Improvement of all roads and cyclepaths and improved traffic management were also dealt with in the Liberal Party policy.

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