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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5079 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

government's commitment to improving the services and facilities for people in the suburban area.

Mr Speaker, that has been warmly received by residents in the areas where neighbourhood planning has been undertaken, because they can see the government is serious about implementing those issues that are identified by residents as areas for improvement. They are not going to get lost in the bureaucratic maze; they are not going to get lost on the waiting lists of things which we know are happening across the city. We are specifically targeting it as something we will implement. That I think, Mr Speaker, is a very positive indicator of the government's commitment.

Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Hargreaves for raising this motion today. It is valuable to highlight that the ACT government is an important provider of services in our community. It provides a very diverse range of services, and this government is committed to not only supporting those services and maintaining them but to improving them into the future. An example of that is some of the services I have outlined today.

MRS DUNNE (11.52): Mr Speaker, I rise in dismay at this self-seeking motion put forward by Mr Hargreaves today, as perhaps the opening shots of the election campaign. This is nothing more than self-congratulatory pap. We are patting ourselves on the back and saying we are doing wonderful things. But what they are actually talking about, Mr Speaker, is a strange mixture of initiatives that were commenced by the previous government and, alternatively, just things that should be business as usual. It is like yesterday in the debate about the white paper. The actions for planning were to create situations that should be a matter of course, Mr Speaker-business as usual, core business.

Mr Corbell was in here today talking about the great innovations that this Labor government has created in ACTION. But what he was really talking about, Mr Speaker, was core business. When you look at the core business of ACTION and you look at the absolute denigration of services around the place, you see that this core business is really run down.

I would just like to take one example, Mr Speaker. I live in Carlile Street in Evatt. Most of the people in Carlile Street in Evatt-

Mr Hargreaves: We're going to put a bus down there now.

MRS DUNNE: Well, it would be a very good thing if they did put a bus down there, because most of the people in Carlile Street, Evatt, live in excess of 600 metres-most of them live a full kilometre-from the nearest bus stop. The government policy is that everyone should be within 400 metres walking distance of a bus stop. At the end of Carlile Street, on Copland Drive, Mr Speaker, there are two bus stops, one on either side of the road. One has a curb, a bus shelter and things like that. The other one, for years, has been essentially fairly informal. There has been a post on the road that said "Bus Stop".

A little while ago, Mr Speaker, somebody came along and put a cement pad next to the post in the road that said "Bus Stop". Three weeks later, Mr Speaker, they closed the bus stop, which means that the people who live in Carlile Street and all the streets that run

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