Page 3417 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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amending Mr Coe’s motion, because Mr Corbell is attempting to amend it, I am now attempting to amend Mr Corbell’s amendment. Nonetheless, for those who read it in advance, it is exactly the same.
What I am doing here is having a bit more contemporary information in the notes. Population growth, peak oil and climate change—as I said earlier, all of these things dictate a shift away from the private car, which, I am quite happy to agree, does currently represent the principal, in terms of kilometres, method of transport in Canberra. That certainly is true now. It is just something that we need to change and address.
I would contend that present and future parking provision and pricing do need to be well planned and undertaken in conjunction with other investments in sustainable transport to facilitate a smooth transition away from the current dependence on the private car. We need to plan so that we can move smoothly without disadvantaging people, particularly people who will find it very difficult to move to other forms of transportation. I think that is one of the things we really must remember in this debate. There are people who, because of various disabilities or age, are not going to be easily using public transport, walking or cycling. My mother is one of those. We need to make sure that we have a system so that people who can use other forms of transport are encouraged to do that but so that there is still provision for people who need to use a private car, a disabled taxi or ambulance. But I will not go there. That is the subject of a whole other debate because that is a part of transport which is really not well looked after.
I will talk a bit more quickly about the things that I would like to see the government do. What we would like the government to do first of all is to finalise a parking strategy in a way that is consistent with the legislated 40 per cent greenhouse gas reduction commitment, and release that strategy by December 2011. I am fairly confident that the strategy will come out at around that time because Mr Corbell already said that. What I am not confident about is that it will be consistent with the 40 per cent greenhouse gas reduction commitment. Mr Corbell did not make that commitment in his speech, so I call upon him, as part of this debate, to make that commitment.
Mr Coe made some good points around master plans. I think we should try and ensure that all ACT master plans address car parking in a way that is consistent with the abovementioned new parking strategy, which I hope will come out this year and will be consistent with the 40 per cent greenhouse gas reduction commitment. I agree with Mr Coe that there is widespread public concern about parking, so I think it would be useful for the government to report to the Assembly on areas where the government feels there is a need for parking reform and what changes it might make.
I then have a number of specific reforms that we would like to see happen. These have all in fact been taken from our submission last year to draft territory plan variation 303, which dealt with a lot of parking matters. I would draw the attention of Mr Coe and Mr Corbell to this. I will quickly go through it. We would like to see the replacement of the mandatory minimum car parking requirements with maximums for new development and the prioritising of areas close to good transport links.
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