Page 3431 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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with some type of organised sport, it is considerably easier to do it if you have access to a car.
Of course, some days you will be able to get a bus somewhere, depending on where the activity is. If you want to be involved in cultural activity, whether it is anything from taekwondo to playing the bagpipes, most of those locations are not at a central place on a bus route. If you want to provide a bus service that gets people to all of those activities in a reasonable time at reasonable expense, you will beggar the city. It will send the city broke.
So it is about a balance. But I do not hear anything in what the Greens are saying about a balance. I refer members by way of example to page 92 of the Select Committee on Estimates 2011-2012 report. Recommendation 91 says:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government develop a comprehensive transport plan to ensure that the additional seating capacity within the Manuka Oval can be accommodated.
I started this discussion because I said: “If we are going to upgrade Manuka Oval and there is greater seating capacity, it is already a bit of a dog’s breakfast there for parking when there are big events. You need a parking strategy.” If you look at the recommendation, it does not mention “parking strategy”. Why? It is because the Greens did not want the word “parking” there. There is no parking consideration at all. Their answer, their total answer to it is, “Let’s have a public transport strategy.” We had to put that in a footnote because we were not allowed to have it in the recommendation. The footnote states:
… Mr Smyth and Mr Hanson considered that the transport plan should incorporate parking as well as public transport issues.
Why would you not have a recommendation that said, “Let’s have a public transport plan as well as a parking strategy for Manuka”? We all know that it is a very busy centre. But no, the Greens, assisted by the Labor Party, voted against that notion that you should have adequate parking—
At 6 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.
MR SMYTH: That is why Mr Coe’s motion here today is very reasonable and that is why it should be left exactly as it is. There is a lack of adequate parking in the ACT. I have had complaints. I heard Dr Bourke talking about a small business person. I have numerous small business people around the city who complain about the gradual reduction of parking in their area, the fact that they do not get passing trade any more, they do not have the ability for their customers to stop at the front door in a five, 10, 15-minute or half-hour park, duck in and do their business and duck out. It is changing retail in this city. If you want to keep the diversity of retail, particularly in the city centre, you need a diversity of car parking to meet the needs of the various sectors—not just gobble it up. We have seen the government’s policy: “We have got a block of land. We need some more money in the budget. We will sell the block of land.”
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