Page 3168 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 2013
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years. This will help it plan its future network. As I have said before, ACTION has previously had to deal with year-to-year funding, which can make it difficult to forward-plan its network and business.
At the same time, ACTION will undergo a comprehensive review of all aspects of its business. The intention here is to find ways that ACTION can perform better in the services it provides to the community and better in the way it runs its own business. The framework around this review is that we want ACTION to provide better services in the future, its patronage to grow in a way that will meet the government’s sustainable transport targets and will also adapt to future challenges, for example, the introduction of paid parking in the parliamentary triangle by the federal government.
I will also mention that, with the knowledge of its future funding, ACTION is currently undertaking a comprehensive review of the network, and this certainty of funding really helps them to do that planning in a more sophisticated way. I note that the estimate committee’s report recommended that ACTION undertake a comprehensive review of the network. The government’s response notes that recommendation. The new network will be released for consultation in the coming months, and I think that members and the community will see that this is a comprehensive review.
Mr Coe did ask a number of questions about ACTION, and I will seek to touch on a few of those. I think it is quite clear that the development of light rail will not detract from the focus on getting as much improvement as we can out of ACTION in coming years.
Certainly I have the primary responsibility for ACTION, whereas Mr Corbell has the primary responsibility for light rail. Put simply, in that split of responsibilities, I certainly say that quite a priority area for me is to ensure that ACTION is running as efficiently as possible but at the same time meeting the community service obligations that the government has as the provider of public transport. This is sometimes a challenging combination of objectives but I think it is one where improvements can be made. I know that right across the organisation there is the desire to make those improvements.
Mr Coe reflected on the fact that I had indicated that I was not willing to spend resources on extracting some of the data that he had asked for. It potentially could be extracted but the advice I have is that data will not assist ACTION in any way with its planning of the network. ACTION is currently going through an exercise of reviewing the network and looking at the data available to it, and that specific data set has not been necessary, is my advice, to help understand what needs to be done with the network.
Therefore, whilst it may be of some interest to some people, it is not the information that is necessary. In trying to provide an efficient organisation, I have asked ACTION to focus on the core things that they need to do, and I have formed the view that this is not one of them. That is, I guess, the elaboration of the government response to the estimates report.
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