Page 581 - Week 02 - Thursday, 9 March 2006
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If the bill passes in its present form, it will not meet the demands of the people of the ACT. I expect that we will be coming back to revisit it. I hope that we will constantly and regularly revisit this because it will be necessary to do so to build a proper demand-responsive public transport system. I foreshadow that the opposition will be supporting Dr Foskey’s amendment because that that goes part of the way to making it really responsive to people. When there is competition we will have real demand-responsive public transport.
This is a big ask. It is a big ask in a town which is spread out and has low population densities. It is part of a package that we need to see develop over the years, a better integration of transport planning and urban planning generally, which the government talks about but so far has not delivered upon. We need to see real attempts at integration and what some amongst the cognoscenti call seamless mobility, whereby you can get off one means of public transport and onto another. We need to have some compatible ticketing so that, if you get off your ACTION bus and get on the demand-responsive system which is nearby and will take you closer to your front door, you do not have to be juggling different sorts of ticketing; that it really is demand responsive; that there are ways of ensuring that people’s needs are met.
One of the things that we should be looking at is a full range of demand-responsive public transport, including the encouragement of systems which are almost voluntary systems. The one that I have most experience and understanding of is one that runs in various parts of Switzerland called CARLOS, which is a glorified but very secure system of hitchhiking. It encourages people to pick up other people and take them from one place to another. There is seamless mobility; there is an attempt to get people from close to their front door to a mode where they can get other transport and move efficiently through the transport system.
There is much more that we can do. This is a good start. I congratulate the minister on the bill. There are some things that we should be addressing. I echo the sentiments expressed by Mr Pratt here this morning in relation to the role of the ICRC in setting fares. I am concerned, as Mr Pratt is, that we are allowing the minister to set the fares. It is not a criticism of any particular minister. Ministers have a whole lot of responsibilities.
If you put together the fact that, as the legislation currently stands, the minister cannot create a demand-responsive transport system which competes with the ACTION bus system and you add to that that he also has the power to control the fares, he has, in the wrong hands, the power to stymie the system before it gets off the ground. I would like to see this work and I would like to see a system which is more flexible than is currently proposed in this legislation. I will work with the minister to make it so.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (4.50), in reply: Firstly, I address a couple of points that were raised in the debate. I thank members for their support at least in principle, if not in some of the detail. We may discuss some of the detail a little later.
A couple of really quick points: I make this comment for the benefit of Dr Foskey. Mrs Dunne has a very clear idea of the difference between a route service and a charter
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