Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5078 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

the Commonwealth government under John Howard in withdrawing funding for those services overall.

Something, Mr Speaker, which I find to be highly ironic is that the federal government will use a Commonwealth tax rebate to meet the costs of dental work incurred by people who hold private health insurance but it will not provide equivalent funding to those people who need to rely on the public system for dental services. If you have private health insurance you actually get a rebate from the Commonwealth taxpayer if you use it for dental services, but if you have to rely on public health services you get no support from the Commonwealth government, Mr Speaker. It is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace, and the government, Mr Speaker, in the ACT has taken the steps to improve that situation by putting an extra million dollars into dental health services, which are so important in all of the centres across the ACT-Belconnen, Tuggeranong, Woden and Gungahlin. Those services are now being provided in those areas, Mr Speaker, as well as of course in the inner city areas as well.

Mr Speaker, I would like to expand on the theme and look at some of the other services the government has put in place to improve service delivery for people in suburban parts of Canberra. I would just like to point out again the activities of the ACTION bus service, a vital one. Again, as Ms Tucker outlined in her speech on the issue of addressing social equity, this affects the capacity to participate as citizens in the community, Mr Speaker.

We have slashed thus far the bus fare by 50 per cent or more in areas across the city. What have we seen as a result of that, Mr Speaker? We have seen a 9 per cent increase in adult patronage on ACTION bus services, Mr Speaker-a 9 per cent increase on adult, full-paying patronage. That I think is a very significant endorsement of the government's commitment to improving access for citizens in our city to public transport, in terms of affordability.

But we have also increased services-a range of services across the board have been increased. The steps the government is now taking in relation to its sustainable transport policy, details of which I will be announcing very shortly, will outline further steps that we will be taking to address these very important issues.

Mr Speaker, of course provision of suburban services is also important in the context of providing support to existing suburbs. Just one example I would like to raise in the time I have available is the issue of the neighbourhood planning program which set out, Mr Speaker, a range of issues that people wanted to raise through that process. Do you know what, Mr Speaker? The government didn't just do the planning and leave it at that, the government set aside over a million dollars-I forget the actual figure, but I think it is closer to $3 million-in this year's budget to fund capital works improvements identified through the neighbourhood planning program.

If people identified they had problems with street lighting, if they had problems with their footpaths that needed some addressing-perhaps they had some problems with their car parking arrangements in a local centre, in a local street, or perhaps they had problems with some other issues to do with neighbourhood amenity-$3 million is set aside, Mr Speaker, in the budget to specifically address those issues. That is the level of the

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .