Page 3172 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 2013
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Road safety measures in Fadden, Macarthur and Gowrie are being considered currently after residents persistently called for action to be taken to address speeding along Coyne Street and Bugden Avenue. But, again, we see that time has been taken between residents raising concerns and the government actually considering these problems as part of their budget process and having the problem fixed. This issue has just taken too long.
Shopping centres in Tuggeranong also continue to be ignored in upgrade programs for the 2013-14 budget. It is no different to previous years with Kambah village still in desperate need of upgrading, and this seems to yet again have dropped off the radar and been put on the back burner.
The park and ride facility at Calwell has been a long time coming, and the ACT Labor-Greens government promised this much-needed facility for commuters to be completed and operational in March 2012. Understanding that there were issues around the contractor that was successful at that tender, construction at this site is stalled yet again and residents are still waiting for completion of this project.
Another project that has been promised over successive budgets but yet to be completed is the upgrade of Ashley Drive. Countless money has gone into feasibility studies and design work; however, actual work is yet to be done. In fact, if we look at the big shiny map on the back of budget paper 2, the biggest expenditure devoted to Tuggeranong residents and south Woden is expansion of the Mugga Lane landfill. Whilst it is an important expenditure, it does not do much to improve the local facilities and amenities for residents that reside in Tuggeranong and the south Woden area.
I must also mention today the dangerous lack of attention paid to the state of our rural roads and rural villages in this budget and budgets before it. I have had a lot of contact and discussion with residents who reside in our rural areas since being elected to this place, particularly with residents of both Uriarra and Tharwa villages. While the issue is somewhat similar to the state of our roads, general amenity, graffiti, vandalism and antisocial driving, the feeling is definitely the same. The residents of these unique areas of Canberra feel neglected by successive Labor-Greens governments.
One particular issue faced by residents of these villages is antisocial behaviour in and around the rural recreation areas and roads. Whilst this is a law and order issue, there are some simple fixes in the purview of TAMS that would make a big difference. One example is the instalment of gates and fences on the approach to the river near Tharwa. This would make a big difference and go a long way in deterring the illegal and antisocial behaviour currently occurring in this proximity. It is just a simple matter of reinstalling a gate that was previously in existence prior to the bridge upgrades. But this has been simply placed in the too-hard basket.
Very little attention has been paid to the maintenance of rural roads in this budget and in previous ACT budgets. Many of these roads are well used by ACT residents to access our national parks, the snowfields and other wonderful natural resources we have on our doorstep. These roads include Boboyan Road, Smiths Road, Angle
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