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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2000 ..

outcome for 2003-04 community path maintenance programs shows that 20,000 square metres of path maintenance was to be carried out for a cost of $2.7 million. That amounts to about $136 per square metre. However, in this 2004-05 budget, we see that 20,000 square metres of community path maintenance will be carried out at a cost of $3 million. This amounts to $150 a square metre—an increase in cost of $20, much greater than CPI, for the same number of square metres of community path maintenance.

Similarly, if we look at the municipal roads maintenance, we again see less for more. The estimated outcome for 2003 municipal road maintenance was 97 lane kilometres of planned maintenance at a cost of $58,146 per kilometre. In the 2004-05 budget, we see only 95 lane kilometres of planned maintenance at a cost of $69,514 per kilometre. This is two kilometres less of municipal road maintenance than the previous year and a whopping increase in cost of $11,386 per kilometre. Maybe it is Dick Whittington’s roads of gold in London—I do not know.

This is clearly a government that is not committed to getting best value for their dollar for the community, or making effective use of taxpayers’ funds. The other problem is, of course, that they just cannot get things done on time. In 2003-04, $1 million was provided for crime prevention street lighting, meant to be completed in June 2004. However, we see that this much-needed street lighting will not be completed until April 2005—a 10-month delay. Similarly, funding of $4 million was provided in the last budget for the Morshead Drive/Pialligo Avenue upgrade, to be completed in June 2004. This project in fact will not be completed until April 2005, another 10-month delay.

The refurbishment of Bible Lane was to be completed in December 2004; now it is June 2005. The Moore Street health building was to be completed in June 2004 and is now listed for May 2005. The final stage of the glassworks was to be completed by June 2004 and will not be finished until at least March 2006—maybe longer. These delays are not just on projects. We see that long delays have become acceptable for people queuing in government shopfronts. The average acceptable waiting time has jumped from seven minutes in 2003-04 to 12 minutes in 2004-05. The government says it is not able to achieve the seven minutes, despite the fact that shopfront services have supposedly improved and there is better access to internet-based transactions. This of course means that there is less need for customers to attend the shopfronts, effectively reducing the long queues. So why have the acceptable waiting times gone up? I do not know; it is a puzzle.

As Mrs Burke mentioned, the Deakin Shopping Centre promised by the Chief Minister in September 2002 for the Deakin Traders Association is still not being funded. It failed to appear in 2003-04; it has failed to be given any priority now, in 2004-05—another act of omission, or perhaps we can forget that one, too. I would, however, like to compliment the government on the funding of $14 million for the long-awaited Civic Library and linked facility. I will be keeping a very close eye on that to see that we do not have another slippage back a few more years.

I would also like to mention the Australian International Hotel School. I wish this government would make up its mind about the fate of the school. First they said it was to remain open; then they said it would close down; and now in the 2004-05 budget, budget paper 4 at page 369, it says that the government will continue to support the school with funding for operations listed in 2004-05 and continuing into the out years. In fact, the

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