Page 860 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 2 April 2008
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ACTION bus service—network
MR GENTLEMAN: My question is to the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services. Is the minister aware of the claim that ACTION will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to change the colour of the bus fleet with the introduction of the proposed new network, and is there any substance to this claim?
MR HARGREAVES: I thank Mr Gentleman for the question and his abiding interest in things to do with transport in the ACT. Mr Speaker, we have seen media releases put out by the shadow minister for, I guess, transport. Who is it this week? Is it Mr Seselja, perhaps?
Mr Gentleman: Probably.
MR HARGREAVES: It probably is. Maybe it should be after today. The shadow minister says—and this is relevant, I have to tell you, Mr Speaker, to this notion that we are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on logos—that it is up to the Stanhope government to tell the community they will not waste any more money on further focus groups. Of course, that issue of logos was discussed where, Mr Speaker? It was discussed with the community. Through what? Through focus groups. They do not want us to have focus groups. They do not want us to talk to the community, Mr Speaker.
They say the government was planning to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars making changes to ACTION logos and colours and that they would prefer to spend the money on improving services. Let us take a couple of these claims and whether there is any substance to them. Mr Speaker, hundreds of thousands of dollars? No. They have got it wrong again. As somebody in my office was once heard to say, “Get with the program, Mr Pratt!”
Opposition members interjecting—
MR HARGREAVES: They can babble away and I will ignore it, Mr Speaker, because I am used to it.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, address your comments through me.
MR HARGREAVES: I am, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: And address the question asked by Mr Gentleman. Members of the opposition should cease interjecting.
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, the government is not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the logo, and it is not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars painting the buses. They are about four and a half years out of date, as we could kind of expect of them, because they do not understand that they lost the last election, and they are going to lose the next one.
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