Page 95 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2006
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whole of Canberra as they stated they would in their sustainable transport plan.
Mr Corbell: That is not true. Haven’t you heard of the Transborder service?
MR PRATT: If you have got an update on that, minister, we would like to hear about it.
Another of the key goals and strategies of the sustainable transport plan is:
Price transport and parking to make them efficient and equitable and to make costs transparent.
The two strategies listed to achieve these goals are, firstly, pay parking in town centres and, secondly, investigating road pricing in future. I find it interesting that road pricing is an issue. It is one that Ms Porter obviously feels the government has demonstrated its commitment to. If she could enlighten us on the progress of road pricing in the ACT—perhaps the minister can do so later—I am sure that both the opposition and citizens of the ACT would be most interested. If neither Ms Porter nor the minister himself wish to enlighten us on the potential for road pricing for the ACT, I would like her to justify moving a motion, which the minister is supporting, that incorrectly recognises the commitment of the ACT government to the sustainable transport plan.
If we look at the huge hike in costs, from $42 million originally to a predicted $120 million-plus associated with the Gungahlin Drive extension, that does not show much of a commitment by this government to road pricing. Within the plan there is a section covering how the government plans to fund investment and public transport. It states:
Other sources of funds include further charges for parking, although such measures need to be balanced against other objectives such as the encouragement of business and development in the town centres in Civic. Priority for car parking charges is for long-stay, not short-stay parking.
It is hard to understand how the Stanhope government is supportive of the sustainable transport plan when just recently several car parks—members might be interested to know that they are close to the Assembly—were converted to short-stay from long-stay car parks. That does not seem like a commitment to long-stay car parks, as the plan suggests, does it? The parking costs in the territory keep escalating under this current government. That seems to be the main reason why more people are being forced into public transport under this government. What the increase in patronage numbers really shows is that people cannot afford to use their cars, despite the fact that they should have the freedom of choice and convenience to do so, at least within reason.
I will now turn in more detail to the growth of adult patronage on ACTION buses. Last year ACTION’s annual report in fact showed a small decrease in adult passengers. Weekly figures from more recent data show that there has been some moderate increases on last years figures, but it remains to be seen at the end of the next financial year if those trends continue. Some of those increases are obviously due to an increase in the cost of fuel.
We are yet to see clearly how much of the government’s initiatives are responsible for that increase in patronage. So while the government boasts about increased daily patronage numbers, it is not necessarily a long-term snapshot of ongoing increases. In
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