Page 2698 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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Eyesore of the week—copy of article from the Sunday Times—Sunday, 20 August 2006.
This rubbish must have taken months, if not years, to accumulate. Either the Stanhope government has not noticed—it does not have enough rangers to inspect the suburbs anyway—or it does not have the funds to commit to cleaning it up. Either way, it is disgraceful that this government does not have standards that it upholds when it comes to cleaning up these unsightly and dangerous rubbish dumps. I put it to you, Mr Speaker, that the front-line ranger force has been run down to such an abysmal level that they cannot even find this stuff, although the paper can.
Graffiti is still being plastered all over the place and remains in situ for months on end. This government does not have the money or the inspectors to ensure it is removed quickly. It does not have a strategy to even prevent the splashing of graffiti. It does not have enough rangers to conduct the sorts of operations that might need to be conducted to finally catch somebody in the process of graffitiing government property, let alone private property.
The drains near Phillip College, which are visible from the road, are a sad example of this neglect. Let us take for example the little Che Guevara graffiti on the kerb at the street crossing adjacent to the National Bank here on London Circuit. It has been there for six months at least. The department has probably got orders from Che Guevara soul mates in this government—his comrades—to let him be, to let him sit there. That is it. It is a good one. We ought to table that.
I turn now to front-line capability. Speaking of not having enough inspectors to keep an eye on the place, the Department of the Territory and Municipal Services is obviously going to see the continued erosion of front-line staff. The problem is that Mr Hargreaves could not, during budget estimates hearings, give a clear indication of how the restructuring of the department would affect front-line positions and jobs in general.
The minister could not define what would happen to the front-line capability—how many positions would be lost, how many positions might be transferred to shared services or to other areas. We can see there are going to be sweeping job cuts throughout the public sector as a result of this slash-and-burn budget. We will be sure to suffer the loss of front-line positions, which will translate to a decrease in service to the community. We cannot afford to let the state of our urban environment deteriorate any more than it already has under this government, but I think it can only get worse given the looming cuts.
Let us talk about urban service’s responsibilities for hazard reduction. We asked the minister, again in estimates, how much money he will have set aside for this bushfire season and, in fact, for the pre-season and then the in-season hazard reduction and ongoing maintenance. He could not tell us. He could not define it. You would not have thought that after the lessons of last year, when we had a serious little bushfire at Yarralumla as a consequence of very poor urban edge planning and maintenance. Five houses were impacted, three were destroyed and two were severely damaged.
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