Page 757 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 26 February 2013
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discussions and other discussions we have had that those opposite want to drive people out of their cars where they can. They want to make parking in this town as difficult as they can whereas the members on this side want to actually make parking easier for people, because we do use our cars in this town. I will get to that later.
We have got a range of policies quite at odds with those opposite. I commend Mr Coe, who at the last election put forward a number of very good policies aimed at making parking not just more available but easier to use. I refer members to our range of policies in the 2012 election that would have made life a lot easier for the people of the ACT. Ultimately, that is what we are here to do—to improve the lives of the people here in Canberra.
But there is no question that this is a government that has got too much ideology that is getting in the way of the practicalities. Car parking is just one of those issues. In fact, I was just discussing lease variation DV306, I think it is, with Mr Coe, and some of the unintended consequences of that that are just going to make people’s lives harder in the long run.
In May last year we saw the fifth anniversary of the government’s parking strategy. It is certainly one of the government’s many unfinished projects. In 2007 it promised to strike a balance between parking supply, demand and pricing. It promised to increase parking over the next 15 to 20 years. Mr Assistant Speaker, a casual glance around the city will see that the static car parking supply is not meeting growing demand. We have been pushing hard on things like the Cooleman Court master plan. You just need to go to that place.
Certainly Mrs Jones, yourself, Mr Assistant Speaker Doszpot, and I are only too aware of the impact of a lack of parking on many people. It is not just people going to work. In many cases it is the mums trying to do the shopping with their kids or elderly people. We know what a lack of parking actually means in terms of the impact on people’s lives.
Indeed, a casual glance at the government strategy will show that the plan, far from increasing car parking, actually means to reduce the number of car parks from eight to just five for every 10 city workers. A casual glance at parking prices will show that we are paying an increasing premium for that static supply.
After almost doubling under Labor, the 2030 budget saw parking charges leap by a further 12 per cent. That translates to an additional $625 a year, taking the total cost of parking to a whopping $5,625 a year. Under the ACT Labor and Greens coalition, it now costs $5,625 a year for a Canberran to park their car to go to work, to go to the doctor, to do their shopping. This is under the guise of encouraging Canberrans into alternative modes of transport.
They say it is a positive way to drive commuters to public transport. But do not let me get started on the subject of public transport in this town. The reality is that this is a government monopoly and it is exploiting the pockets of consumers. It is a blatant, monopolistic exploitation with captive audience demand for a limited supply. It is for
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