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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 3996 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

To get back to Mr Whitecross, if that is a vicious attack on the buses, it was just as vicious when Mr Connolly did it. But I do not believe that it was vicious at all. ACTION has achieved its savings under both Labor and Liberal governments, primarily through the labour productivity and efficiency measures. Much of this was long overdue. I think we should be congratulating ACTION management for those achievements, rather than taking Mr Whitecross's dog-in-the-manger approach and criticising them for it. He would do far better if he were to acknowledge their achievements and offer them a word of praise.

Mr Speaker, in summary, the Graham report was tabled in this Assembly only in June, a new general manager was appointed in July, and community consultation for the design of a network has commenced. A community meeting - one of a number - is taking place tonight. It follows others held over recent weeks, and more will follow. Personally, I am delighted that the Opposition has expressed such strong support for implementing the Graham report; but I wish that Opposition members would be consistent. Either you implement it or you do not. The Assembly adopted the report. The Government is implementing it. That is precisely what we are doing, and we are in the middle of it now. We are on target for the introduction of a new network by July next year. This new network will reflect the input from the extensive community consultation process currently under way.

Mr Speaker, the service is already greatly improved, compared to what it was a year ago; community confidence is increasing; complaints have dropped to the point where they are negligible; further major improvements are proceeding - new routing, new timetables, user-friendly bus stops, innovation - everywhere you look. Unlike Labor, Mr Speaker, I applaud ACTION for its achievements - a sentiment which I believe is now shared by a majority of Canberra's commuters.

MR CORBELL (11.44): Mr Speaker, we must have hit a raw nerve with the Minister this morning, because what we received in the Minister's rebuttal on ACTION was a lot of talk but not much demonstration of what he is doing now to fix services in ACTION. He could have been doing something, but he has not been. That is the whole point of this motion today. Mr Speaker, fundamentally, this Government does not understand what public transport is about. Public transport is about providing connections in our community. It is about allowing those in our community who choose not to use a car, or who are unable to use a car, to travel around their city. But this Government does not understand that. It prefers to view public transport as something that has to be fitted into a balance sheet, into a ledger. That is why we are in the position we are in today.

Mr Speaker, in February of this year, in the very first speech I made in this place, I highlighted one aspect of ACTION's failure to deliver services and, more broadly, the failure of this Government to understand that services are about helping people and are not about just balancing budgets. I raised the issue of two elderly sisters who live in Weston Creek. They purchased a home in Weston Creek which was right beside a bus stop. They did that because they were both in their eighties, one of them had a heart condition and they were unable to use a car. They chose a home which was on

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