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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2173 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

of these work practices. Now they are trying to turn around and say that the workers at ACTION are somehow to be blamed for inefficiencies at ACTION. Yet this Government did not try to address those and have never tried to address those in the three years that they have been managing the public transport system in Canberra. They cannot blame management either, because the Government agreed to do nothing about this.

Mr Speaker, this contrasts with the performance of the previous Labor Government, which did generate efficiencies in the public transport system by negotiating with the Transport Workers Union changes to work practices which reduced the amount of dead running time and which allowed for the introduction of part-time drivers so that they did not have as many people on the payroll at times when there was not a requirement for drivers. The Government have been very quick to blame other people for the problems that they have experienced with ACTION. We have seen them blaming management. We have seen what happened to the former CEO of ACTION when they were looking for a scapegoat for the way that ACTION had been run down and for the drops in patronage. We have all read the articles in the paper about how the Government was undermining him. Then, hey presto, he put in his resignation and went off to greener pastures.

We have heard Mr Kaine try to say that the reason why there was a reduction in patronage in ACTION was that John Howard was sacking public servants. That was a good one! It was all John Howard's fault. We know that the Government likes to blame John Howard for everything that goes wrong in Canberra. Mr Kaine was getting in early with the same theme, saying it was all John Howard's fault. It was not because they hiked the fares by 50 per cent; it was not because they kept cutting back the services; it was not because of their ridiculous holiday timetables or anything else; it was all John Howard's fault. But what does Mr Graham say about this in his report? He says:

Due to the economic data outlined above; and due to the experience of Deane's Buslines; it is suggested that the cause of the patronage decline in October and November last year was not only due to the employment decline -

as Mr Kaine had suggested -

but was also due to factors associated with service delivery standards.

If you cut the service, fewer people use it. If you hike the fares, people do not feel as happy about catching the buses. It is a reduction in service delivery standards, not the employment decline, as Mr Kaine would want us to believe.

Mr Speaker, what about this little gem from the Graham report? One of the conclusions refers to "The non-operation of services on some public holidays and the service reductions over summer" having contributed to problems in the performance of ACTION. It continues:

Once again, this issue relates to one of the major principles of attracting bus patronage, as identified in Chapter 3. It is recommended in Chapter 8 that these service curtailments no longer take place.

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