Page 1509 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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I live opposite a reserve and near the primary school. It is not uncommon for me to collect rubbish, bottles and broken glass where it is appropriate. However I have noticed that glass is everywhere on the roads from the south side to the north side.
I was moved to write to the minister only the other day because, on two recent shopping centre visits, I was asked about street sweepers and when they would be operating in their suburb. On asking more residents, I discovered many had never heard or seen a street sweeper in their area. Others did not even know Canberra had such services.
With a growing population and new suburbs coming on board, I think we need to review how maintenance issues are being managed and what resources are being directed to them. Last week in the Assembly, Mr Rattenbury, in responding to Mr Hanson’s motion about the need for government to get its priorities right, criticised my motion. Let me quote what he said:
Mr Doszpot then goes on to call on the government to urgently prioritise the older suburbs for improvements. So which is it? Is it the forgotten suburbs that Mr Hanson cares about or the inner suburbs that Mr Doszpot cares about? Which bit of parochialism are we meant to respond to here?
Mr Rattenbury, we would like to believe you when you say you care for all of Canberra, but I know from experience that the rhetoric does not always match the reality. I have to question why a suburb like Crace, which is all of five minutes old, should require repairs to footpaths and overhanging trees and require the level of maintenance that the older suburbs do. And rather than suggest it is a matter of parochialism, surely it is more a case of the government not doing the job it is elected to do. That job is to serve the needs of its residents, to concentrate on things we can influence and improve.
The very point of Mr Hanson’s excellent motion last week was that this government has its priorities wrong. How well Mr Rattenbury’s response demonstrates that. Is it parochial to want to have better services for your constituents because such things as affordable rates, clean streets, lights that work, footpaths that are safe to walk on and shopping centres free from graffiti are the things that matter to Canberra families? You just have to be out there at the shopping centres to know that.
Of less concern to even fewer people are such things as light rail, wind farms, piggeries and renewable energy targets, because they will do little more than drive up the cost of living and do little to improve the daily lives of Canberrans. Mr Rattenbury and his government impose rates in the thousands of dollars on the homes of ordinary Canberrans, simply because, 50 years ago, they built their homes in what are now regarded as prestige suburbs. I wonder whether that is the fate of some of our newer outer suburbs as they become the new inner Canberra in 50 years time—unaffordable rates, broken footpaths, filthy streets and unmown open space.
Some may believe that these issues are far too trifling for us as MLAs to be taking up Assembly time discussing. But let me remind this Assembly that this is what concerns
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