Page 1510 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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Canberrans, and it goes to what makes them enjoy living in Canberra. That is why we were elected to this place.
Mr Rattenbury last week went to great lengths to assure the Assembly that he was here for all Canberrans. He said:
You name the suburb. It does not matter from where you send in a complaint to the government; the government will go out and fix it—not just in the parochial areas and the ones that Liberal Party members have decided to focus on today.
Mr Rattenbury, what happened at Mirinjani at Weston, with older citizens in a middle-aged suburb? Let me quickly bring the Assembly up to date with this particular footpath issue. When I visited Mirinjani village in September 2013, residents pointed out the state of the most used community footpath from Namatjira Drive to Cooleman Court—a route frequented by Mirinjani retirement village residents, some of whom are able to walk without assistance, others who use mobility scooters or walkers.
We wrote to the minister in early September and outlined two problems. One was the state of the community footpath I mentioned; the other was the gradient, angle and incline of another footpath from the walkway up to the bridge, which was dangerous for residents who ride mobility scooters. The minister replied in November, advising that the work to remove trip hazards along the community pathway had been completed, and that he had instructed Roads ACT to undertake investigations about the gradient problem. He wrote again in December to give an update on constructing an alternative path that would be disability compliant and further advised that it would be in the 2014-15 footpath program. I know the residents are happy with that.
However, his claim that the community footpath had been repaired is somewhat wide of the mark. Residents asked me to visit again to see what work had been done, because they could not see any—and, frankly, neither could I. There had certainly been no work done on the most obvious and main pathway, the one first complained of. I wrote again to the minister in early March to point this out and I also included photographs. It was six weeks later that the minister admitted they had got it wrong. Frankly, how anyone could have failed to notice the blatantly obvious cracks and the dangerously uneven state of disrepair of this path is beyond belief. However, he admitted his department’s mistake and promised that the work in question would be finished by the end of April 2014. As of today’s date, it remains in the same dangerous state of disrepair as it was when I first brought it to the minister’s attention in September last year.
So much for the minister’s claims that all footpaths are treated equally. And so much for his suggestion that we Liberals should try and decide which should come first—the older suburbs or the forgotten suburbs. I suggest that Weston can lay claim to both categories, just as older suburbs like Deakin, Forrest, Yarralumla and Campbell are fast becoming the forgotten suburbs. We appreciate that not every problem in every street, in every suburb, can be repaired immediately. We also recognise that maintenance must fit within a budgetary time frame.
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