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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (19 October) . . Page.. 3334 ..

Rollerblade Incident at Floriade

MR BERRY (6.22): Mr Speaker, I want to draw an issue to the attention of the Assembly. A constituent has called me, he is a rollerblader. He contacted me by phone on 27 August. He had a fall at Floriade. He was rollerblading through Floriade and he says that the bike path was inundated with water. He had a serious fall, and has suffered quite serious injuries, which has involved medical treatment and laser treatment to repair quite serious abrasions and so on.

He had been in touch with CityScape and could not get any satisfaction from them in relation to his injuries. Shortly after this period Floriade was closed down, and declared an industrial site and off bounds for pedestrians, cyclists and rollerbladers. Mr Speaker, I have written to the Minister and urged the Minister's office to contact this gentleman and I have provided his address. He rang me yesterday and is still worried about obtaining satisfaction for what he claims were serious safety problems, which need to be responded to.

I think this gentleman should be given some satisfaction, he should be given the right of a contact by government officers. I know that the Minister would have passed this through to the department, and I know these issues are often difficult because they could involve legal action. I understand that this person is not keen to get involved in legal action, but he wishes to compromise and reach a satisfactory settlement with the Government, and he wants to discuss it.

I raise this matter, Mr Speaker, because the gentleman is quite upset about the way he has been treated. I ask the Minister to take early action to have his department contact this fellow and resolve the problems he is faced with, so that some form of settlement can be reached with the person; but, furthermore, that in future other pedestrians, cyclists and rollerbladers are not subjected to things that might infringe upon their safety.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Assembly adjourned at 6.26 pm.

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