Page 3421 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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We are privileged. Yet we have people like Simon Corbell and the Greens saying, “We should be limiting the number of car parks.” I suppose they could start with their own. It is indicative, is it not, that the people who tell everyone else they should be getting out of their cars are the very people who drive their car to work, to their car spot in the city? It is easy for us to try to dictate that to other people, when we have that opportunity. So I think that a strong dose of hypocrisy exists in this “do as I say, not as I do” approach.
It goes back to the reality that members of this Assembly, like other people with families, find that the car is still the most convenient mode of transport. Even those who live in the inner suburbs appear to find that the car is still the most convenient mode of transport and is far more convenient than using public transport. I am not seeing a flood of Labor ministers using public transport to get to work, even those who live only a stone’s throw from the Assembly.
So I think we need to be fair dinkum about this. We need to say, “We will improve the public transport system.” We do that through planning the city better, we do that through running it in an efficient manner and we will improve it over time. But even if patronage on buses grows, we need to continue to provide car parks and we should not be deliberately stripping them away. That is what this is about.
In the time I have left, I would like to touch on some of the hotspots at the moment. Certainly, the Erindale centre is one. I think Steve Doszpot has done a great job of highlighting, both in the Assembly and in the media, the issues around Gartside Street in particular and the traders down that end. The parking issues there are getting beyond a joke, it must be said. It is very difficult to get a park there when you want to go there, on a Friday or a Saturday night in particular. There have been a number of car spaces taken away. There is extra development now going on, and the government cannot wait for the outcome of the master plan to fix some of those parking issues and those traffic management issues around the Erindale centre. This is a centre that has a lot of potential to grow but it will not do so at the moment, and those traders are suffering.
Likewise, in Tuggeranong Square—and I have highlighted this issue about Tuggeranong Square—businesses are suffering as a result of the parking issues there. There is not enough short to medium-term space, and that is making it very difficult for traders. Some traders have reported losing 10 per cent of their business because of just one government department coming nearby and there being no response in terms of adequate car parking to deal with that increased demand. So we have got people parking all day, and that affects the ability of people to come and stay for short stays, one-hour, two-hour and three-hour stays, to use those facilities at Tuggeranong Square.
We can point to any number of issues. We know the parking issues here in the city. We know that there are a number of issues in a number of our group centres. Even in places like the Chisholm group centre, there is more and more of a shortage. Even though it is one of the better centres for getting a car park, it is becoming increasingly difficult at certain times.
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