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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 4044 ..

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, I will have to get an extension of time because Mr Osborne is so interested in my speech. The fact is that Graham says that the interchanges - Mr Hird ought to know this because Belconnen interchange is even worse than Tuggeranong interchange - are not where the main sources of commuters for ACTION are. Therefore, in order to improve the public transport system, to make it more customer friendly, you need to ensure that you are picking up and setting down customers where they want to go - not in some remote location, but where they want to go. That does not necessarily mean you have to close interchanges. What it does mean is that you have to ensure that there are bus stops where the customers actually want to go, rather than dropping them off in the middle of nowhere and making them walk long distances.

Mr Osborne: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: It appears that Mr Whitecross wants to change his motion. Could you ask him to do it properly, rather than doing so on his feet? He does not want the Graham report, it appears; he wants just some of it.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MR WHITECROSS: As I have indicated, Mr Osborne is simply wrong in his assessment, as usual. (Extension of time granted)

I need to address some of the remarks of the Minister because it would be a shame to spend too much time pointing out how wrong Mr Osborne is. I know he has been busy the last couple of days moving house and has not had much time to read the Graham report; so I will not go on about it too much. Mr Speaker, let me just get back to the Minister. The poor old Minister had to come in here and try to make out that he had actually done something to implement the Graham report, to improve public transport in the ACT, when in fact he has done nothing.

What was his explanation of how he had spent his time in recent times implementing the Graham report? It made interesting listening to. He has organised some consultation. He is planning for a new shopfront at Civic. It is to replace the one that he closed, moving everyone upstairs and saying that a shopfront was not necessary. He has now decided that a shopfront is necessary and is planning to reintroduce one. The Graham report actually says that they ought to put people on the ground at the interchanges to make them more service-friendly places. What has the Minister done about that? He does not have to build a shopfront. All he has to do is put some people outside where the customers are, but he has done nothing.

Then you have the bus stop information signs. Mr Kaine says they are going to do something about that soon. They have not done anything yet. But he saw a bus stop in Brisbane and he has asked Mr Thurston to make a couple of phone calls to see whether we can get a couple like them and he thinks we might get some soon. In other words, they have done nothing. What have they done about increasing night services? Nothing. Maybe they will do something next month.

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