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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 1880 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

I believe that an effective bus service that meets the needs of the users is the thing that will encourage people back onto the buses. Our new zone system does that. Most people travel within their zone. We should make it cheap for them to travel within their zone. That is fair and that is reasonable, and we will do that.

We look at the schools issue and, yet again, there is no appreciation of the all-up picture in regard to schools. We have about 31,500 boardings on our buses in Canberra each day by schoolchildren. Only 14,000 of those are on direct service buses. They are the ones that get a particularly good service because, in the main, they are picked up on a bus route near their house and they are taken straight to the school of their choice. What no-one opposite raises is the case of those 17,500 who have to rely on the route services, the ordinary buses, which may necessitate, for far shorter journeys, having to cross through an interchange, or exchange buses. So already we have a large number of students who do not get a direct bus service, already pay two fares and travel within their zone.

When those opposite answer the call of a noisy drum, they should look at the whole picture in regard to schoolchildren and their boardings. It is unfair to say simply that the Government has panicked. It is a curious panic attack because it has taken us at least a year. We have had the Graham report, we have had the Booz Allen report and we have had nine months of consultation which finished in about May.

Since then we have had the budget. Then it was June, July and August, with the new route structure coming in in September-October. So there was hardly a panic attack. As started by previous Ministers, we have looked at this across all options. We have considered the options; we have had the studies done; we have had the reports; we have had the inquiries; and we have had community input and consultation.

What we do not get acknowledged in this debate is that the Labor Party's time-based system would simply push adult fares to $3.10 if you are paying cash and to $2.70 if you are buying a Fare Go ticket. There is no acknowledgment of that. If you want a disincentive for adults to use our bus service, you put the fare to $2.70 or $3.10, and they will be driven off the buses in droves. There is no understanding by those opposite that what they do in that system is to end ACTION. I cannot believe that the Labor Party that espouses this support of the public transport system would ask us to take the route that ends ACTION, because the patronage will drop dramatically.

Ms Tucker raised the point that we should have a time-based transfer system with no zones and that it should be revenue neutral. Well, that would be ideal. Then there would be two options. We could have a time-based, revenue neutral, in terms of fares, bus system - and to do that we have to find another $4.3m for the Government to add to the $10.5m, taking it to $15m that they pay ACTION as an inefficiency dividend - or we could cut services. Ms Tucker can answer that question. Does she believe the Government should continue to pay $15m for ACTION to run inefficiently? This is before we talk about investment in infrastructure and getting the value.

We understand the value of infrastructure. We understand the value of investing in a good public transport system. But it does not mean you have to have one that is inefficient. It does not mean that you have to have one that the public will continue to have to subsidise. Opposition is easy. You make your points and you run away.

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