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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2176 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

and be environmentally responsible. Those who choose to drive can pay a reasonable parking fee for that privilege. That should not undermine the viability of a good public transport system. I look forward to Mr Kaine putting in place an ACTION bus service with fares and reliability that are competitive with private car usage.

MR KAINE (Minister for Urban Services) (11.53): I will be brief because I do not think the debate brought out much that requires a response, except that some of the comments made by Mr Whitecross do need, I think, to be refuted. His first assertion was that the Government had an objective of cutting back expenditure on ACTION and gradually running it down. The Government has no such objective. In fact, Labor did; they began this process of a massive reduction of expenditure on ACTION. At the time, I presume they thought they were justified. Ms Horodny has made the point that a substantial part of the reduction of the expenditure on ACTION occurred during Labor governments. It is a bit rich for Mr Whitecross, who was not even around at that time, to accuse this Government of having an objective of running it down. (Quorum formed) On the question of the funding of ACTION, Mr Whitecross says that the Grants Commission tells us that the Government is spending $10m below what is required. That may be so, but the Grants Commission also tells us that we are significantly overspending on health and education. Would the Labor Party support our bringing back the expenditure on health and education to the standards that the Grants Commission determines? They have not shown any enthusiasm for it until now.

Mr Whitecross talks about this new-found enthusiasm that the Liberal Party has displayed. I would say this is a new-found enthusiasm on the part of the Labor Party about having any regard to what the Grants Commission says. They have always said before that the Grants Commission talks about standards and there is no obligation on the part of the Government to adopt a standard determined by the Grants Commission. Now they are telling us that we should do so. If it is fine for us to adopt that standard for our public transport system, it is equally justifiable that we adopt that standard for health and education, I submit. They had better make up their minds what they want. Do they want us to stick to the standards determined by the Grants Commission or do they want us to stick to our own standards that we determine in terms of our own priorities?

The Leader of the Opposition also spoke about this new-found interest in public transport. I submit, Mr Speaker, that it is the Labor Party that has a new-found interest in public transport. If you go to the Estimates Committee report that was published only a few days ago, what is contained in that about public transport? There is only one small item, and I will quote it:

There was a concern that the decision to allow only one wheelchair space on the new midi buses was based on a commitment to the minimum required by the Disability Discrimination Act ...

The only matter of concern that the Estimates Committee elicited was that the new midi-buses had only one wheelchair space. That was the Labor Party's interest in public transport during the Estimates Committee hearing. Now, only a matter of days later, they suddenly come up with all this great concern about ACTION. If we are talking about a new-found interest, I suggest that the new-found interest is on that side of this house and not on this side.

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