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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2965 ..

The Link project does not just mean a new library; it will impact on the Canberra Theatre and the Playhouse Theatre. The Canberra Theatre Corporation has noted that it will impact on its ability to sell tickets over the next two years. We will have to continue to monitor that and work out how to allow theatre-hungry Canberrans access to professional shows in the ACT while that development goes ahead.

I will add one more thing; it is simpler to do it now. There is money in this budget for some greenhouse gas abatement measures. I respond to some comments made in relation to greenhouse gas. The Minister for Environment drew to the attention of the Assembly that he thought that some members had misled the house during a debate on greenhouse gas abatement measures last week. I say to the minister that I went back and checked my Hansard and, to the best of my knowledge, I did not say anything that was false. He claims that members said that he had abandoned targets. I checked what I said and I believe that what I said was factual. I wanted to put that on the record and put the minister’s mind at rest.

MR PRATT (10.20): I want to pick up on a couple of local issues in terms of DUS maintenance. I am pleased to see an extra $250,000—I think it is—per annum recurrent for local suburban infrastructure. I hope this will do something about the outstanding problems that I have been able to go back and check, particularly things like cracked footpaths. I am talking about Langdon Avenue, Longmore Crescent in Wanniassa, Macfarland Crescent in Pearce and, particularly, Beasley Street in Torrens, which is the footpath link to Mawson shops.

These are areas where many elderly live and they depend on being able to walk along footpaths. I notice that some of these footpaths have been buffered to remove the bumps and grinds in them. But that is not working particularly well. A year or two after that work was done, those paths are now cracking. Yes, it is good money appropriated, but it needs to be spent wisely. The calibre of work is suspect in this particular area.

Hopefully this money will go to doing something about picking up dumped cars in Michie Street, Wanniassa, which have been there since Adam was a boy.

The other issue of maintenance and cleaning up is the area around Lanyon shops. For more than 18 months people have been complaining to me about this. There is a question about whether the government’s contractor is complying with its needs and whether government inspectors are indeed auditing the work that they do. Clearly they are not, because the gutters and the drainage areas around the Lanyon shops have been constantly cluttered with plastic bags and rubbish for a long time. That area needs to be looked at.

I gather another $1 million is allocated to cleaning up graffiti. That is certainly welcome. I hope that the four-kilometre spectacle of back fences covering most of Pearce and Torrens along Athllon Drive is cleaned up. The question is whether some of that $1 million annually could be saved through better preventative measures. I hear a thundering silence at the question of initiatives that will be taken to try to prevent graffiti happening in the first place rather than just reacting after the event and cleaning it up.

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