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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 1878 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The point I make is that, in the public transport systems of many major cities around the world, there is probably a variable between the number of people that travel to work by public transport as opposed to those that travel to the civic centre, the hub. One of the real problems that we have in Canberra with ACTION is that those of us that do work in the city centre choose, for whatever reason, not to use ACTION services.

Much of my concern has to do with an attitude within government to public transport. It is not an attitude that actually embraces the public benefit, the social advantages that accrue to so many people within the community - those people at that edge of the community who rely absolutely on the provision of an effective public transport system, whose quality of life is determined by their capacity to access transport, and whose mobility is dependent on public transport. I am concerned at the level of commitment by government to a vigorous and good public transport system. That underlines the whole debate that we need to have about this, in addition to questions as to the environmental impact of our dependence, and continuing and unquestioned dependence, on the motor car in Canberra. This is a car city. But it does not need to be to the extent that it is. There are so many more things that we can be doing. The point has been made repeatedly - and it is appropriate for it to be made in the context of this debate - that one of the groups that are major users of public transport is, of course, schoolchildren. The worrying aspect of the zonal system, the one that has been highlighted most graphically and which we dealt with yesterday in a significant debate, is the very negative impact which the zonal system would have on schoolchildren. The Government has now grudgingly accepted that perhaps that is worth a revisit, though without any real commitment at all.

It is of concern to me that the Government will not even accept the impact of the zonal system on schoolchildren and the capacity that it has to alienate one of those groups that so strongly support public transport in Canberra - namely, schoolchildren. It seems to me a real reflection of the Government's strategies and thinking on this that it puts at risk its strongest customers, its most loyal customers - namely, schoolkids.

Ms Tucker: A captive market.

MR STANHOPE: It is a captive market, and it is being threatened. It seems to me incongruous that one group, that one identifiable group that is the most loyal supporter of public transport - namely, schoolchildren - has been targeted under the new zonal system. It just beggars my understanding. I will not go over that now. I just wanted to make the primary point about the need for a commitment from government - not the nervous, panicked response that ACTION is such a drain on the public purse that we have to keep rationalising it, that we have to make these incredibly stringent demands for further staff cuts.

The staff cuts that are being imposed on the maintenance staff at ACTION in this latest round are extreme. In some of the workshops the staff numbers are being dropped by almost half. When one visits the Belconnen ACTION depot in particular, one is incredibly sad to see the under-utilisation of the infrastructure, the capacity, at that site.

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