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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (17 February) . . Page.. 219 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

The ACTION bus service, for the first time, has the ability to deliver real public transport for ACT residents. It has, I believe, the overwhelming support of all the ACTION staff, because they have really worked hard to make this work. Guy Thurston and all the drivers, all the mechanics and everybody who has had a hand in this have done a tremendous job to make sure that this network delivers.

On the question of fares, that particular lady spoke with Mr Thurston after the meeting. As we promised, we stayed and we discussed this. Mr Thurston tells me that several of the women who spoke might not be happy but they seem to understand the need for the change.

Say a Chisholm family had a son who travelled to Holy Family Primary School at Gowrie and an older son who travelled to St Edmund's. The primary school student would pay 60c to travel from Chisholm to Gowrie, about 21/2 kilometres. You would say that that was a fair price for that trip. But then those opposite are saying that to travel the 15 kilometres from Chisholm to St Edmund's should be 60c too. You are asking short-distance travellers to continue to subsidise the long-distance travellers. That is not fair. That is wrong. That is the failure of their argument. They do not understand that we deliver service. We deliver service over the distances that are peculiar to Canberra. Most cities of 300,000 people are not spread over such a large area. The new system addresses that. The new system is fair and I believe the new system will be a success.

MR HARGREAVES: I ask a supplementary question. None of that rang true on the bus I travelled on during the last week. My supplementary question is: Why has the Government refused to accept its responsibility to the Assembly by introducing zonal fares for school students when the will of this Assembly was that it should not?

MR SMYTH: Mr Hargreaves should refresh his memory about what Mr Osborne's motion said. Mr Osborne's motion said that the new zone structure should not be introduced until it had been considered by an Assembly committee, the committee had reported to the Assembly, the Government had responded and the matter had been debated in this Assembly. My understanding is that on 8 December 1998 Mr Hird spoke and Mr Hargreaves spoke, and at the end the question that the report be noted was resolved in the affirmative.

I have done everything that that motion asked me to do. The matter has been discussed in this place and the Government has complied with everything that was asked of it. Go back and check the original motion. You will find that we were asked to consider it before it was introduced. That process has now been fulfilled in its entirety. I believe that somebody who travels a short distance should pay a small fare and somebody who travels a longer distance should be asked to make a greater contribution to the cost of their trip. That is fair.

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