Page 2639 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 June 2005
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
condition. At a time when the government is talking of cutting positions in urban services, we have a clear failure to deliver the essential services needed to see the city kept clean. I remind you, Mr Speaker, of the points I made about essential services in my contribution to the MPI.
I really do think that the Chief Minister and many of his MLAs are simply too self-absorbed in putting their minds and their precious Assembly time and resources to tilting at national and international windmills, rather than ensuring that the essential debates about the Canberra community and the focus on the delivery of ACT services do occur. What we do see, which can be directly tied back to the shortcomings of this budget, is laziness about municipal services.
There is no clear-cut commitment in this budget for an effective tackling of the graffiti problem. As I said last Thursday, we know that graffiti vandalism is too widespread in this city. I have talked about the unacceptable situation in which the shopkeepers at Calwell found themselves and the work that they had to do to clean off graffiti.
Mr Hargreaves: Good on you, Supercleaner!
MR PRATT: That was really clever, John! It does not take too much brain power to work out that if you multiply the example for Calwell—where Techni-Clean, your contractor, also had to get involved, spending up to $400—and the money spent by the Calwell shopkeepers by the dozens of graffiti reports and add to that the estimate of $1 million spent on cleaning up government assets, you will find that the true cost of graffiti vandalism to the community is enormous, many millions of dollars I would have thought, yet there is no significant commitment in the funding for graffiti removal.
There is pathetically little in this budget for tackling the graffiti problem effectively, with most of the government’s focus on the subject being on so-called graffiti art programs. The minister’s proud boast that the creation of graffiti art walls is an effective strategy is just plain wrong-headed. That, of course, is the soft approach. The territory will continue to suffer because the government has not got the bottle to run no-nonsense preventive programs.
My colleague talked about ovals being in rundown circumstances. There is no strategy in place to save precious water and to save the assets. There is no strategy in place to head off what is otherwise going to be a $15,000 per hectare cost to save and recover ovals across the ACT.
In conclusion, Mr Speaker, the minister has yet to guarantee that the 80 job losses will not include front line essential service positions. Essential municipal services are of paramount importance in ensuring that the ACT looks good to the community and is a place for us to be proud of . However, that will not be possible if services are cut. One must conclude therefore that the government is so wrapped up in its ideological pursuit of pet projects that it is increasingly neglecting the fundamental delivery of services to the ACT.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .