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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3029 ..

MS FOLLETT (11.54): Mr Speaker, I rise to support the motion that has been put forward by Mr Berry. I do so from a particular position that I have adopted throughout my time in the Assembly. That position is that the ACTION bus service is just that. It is a service which is provided to the people of the Territory by the government of the day. It is not, as both Mr Hird and Mr De Domenico seem to imply, some kind of profit-making venture. It is this Territory's public transport system. I believe that, if you have a public transport system, then you must be prepared to pay for it. I do not know of any public transport system in the world that makes a profit. It is also the case that over the years since self-government ACTION has been called upon to make quite major reductions in the cost of providing that service. For Mr Hird to pretend that that is not the case is simply fallacious.

Mr Hird: I did not say that at all. I said that you did it when you were in government. You reduced its money.

MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, would you protect me from these members.

MR SPEAKER: Continue, Ms Follett.

MS FOLLETT: The ACTION bus service has been on a funding agreement for many years. That funding agreement specifies major reductions, initially of the order of $10m and later increased, in its annual running costs. As the leader of the government that first started that cost cutting, of course I support any further measures which would make ACTION a more efficient and less costly exercise.

However, the overriding concern that I have is that the ACTION service delivers a service to the Territory. It is there as a safety net for the very many people in our community who either cannot afford or do not want to make use of a private car. I believe that any government with any kind of an environmental agenda simply must support a public transport system that is user friendly, that is comprehensive and that truly does serve the needs of the people of this Territory. That has to be the first consideration, not the last one. I think it is that philosophical difference between the current Government and other members of the Assembly that is at the heart of this debate. It is quite apparent to me that the people of the suburbs of Charnwood, Flynn, Fraser, Melba, Scullin, Hawker, Weetangera and Cook are entitled to an adequate bus service. I believe also that they are entitled to be consulted on their needs in that bus service.

By way of illustration, I would like to indicate what can happen to an area that does not raise hell about its bus service. One such area is in my electorate. The area is the Causeway. Without so much as a by-your-leave, on a totally unilateral basis, ACTION has cut out weekend and Friday night bus services to the Causeway. They maintain that these services had low patronage. That is incontrovertible. They did have low patronage. There are only 70 households in the Causeway, so they are never going to fill one bus, even if they all get on. Low patronage is, of course, a feature of a small suburb. However, rather than just rationalise the buses and put on one or two over the weekend, they have cut them all out. There is not a bus now.

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