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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2172 ..

Schedule 1 - Appropriations

Part 13 - ACTION

Proposed expenditure - ACTION, $26,371,000 (comprising net cost of outputs, $22,155,000; and capital injection, $4,216,000)

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (11.37): Mr Speaker, the appropriation proposed for ACTION in this year's Appropriation Bill implements the third stage of the Government's agenda of cutting back expenditure on public transport in the ACT, winding back the public transport system, reducing its attractiveness to public transport users and generally running it down. It is interesting to note that, since the Appropriation Bill was first proposed by the Treasurer, the Government has tabled the Graham report into ACTION and the Government's response to that report. They swore black and blue that they have acquired this new-found conviction that public transport is a good thing after all; that it should be improved; and that all the things they have been doing in the past should be overturned.

Today the Government have the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is if they are really serious about improving the public transport system in Canberra. This appropriation is based on the Government's old strategy of running down public transport in Canberra, slashing $12.7m from its budget over three years, reducing the services, and hiking the fares. Mr Speaker, if indeed, as the Minister claimed last week, the Government now has this new-found commitment to improving public transport in the ACT, let them put their money where their mouth is; let us see the Government move an amendment to this appropriation to increase it, to make a more appropriate commitment to public transport in the ACT so that they can fast-track implementation of some of the recommendations of the Graham report and so improve the public transport system in Canberra ahead of the election; not, as the Minister would prefer, ask the community to trust them to do it after the next election.

Mr Speaker, the Graham report identifies what Labor has been saying for two years: Cuts to services have had a detrimental effect on the service; they have discouraged passengers and forced passengers to drop out of the public transport system and desert it. In 1996 we saw a 13 per cent reduction in patronage on ACTION services compared to 1995. The Minister has been able to improve patronage this year only by cutting back on the school buses so that concessional passengers now have to catch route buses instead of school buses. The Minister has tried to apportion to management and workers at ACTION blame for inefficiencies at ACTION; but, of course, the buck stops with the Government; the buck stops with the Minister. Mr Kaine cannot go around saying, "It is not my fault, because I was not the Minister", as he tried to do last week. The people of Canberra simply will not accept his excuses. They want a decent bus service. Trying to blame the workers is a pathetic excuse.

The Minister has made much of the fact that the Graham report identified some work practices which Mr Graham regards as unsatisfactory and leading to inefficiencies in ACTION. But what has his Government done over the last three years about those work practices? It is the Liberal Government that signed the enterprise agreement last year and allegedly was happy to sign the enterprise agreement last year which did not address any

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