Page 639 - Week 02 - Thursday, 16 February 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
I ask members to take note of those sorts of messages about crews working very hard on the infrastructure assets of the city, which many other cities across the country are rather envious of because of their high quality. It would be appreciated if they could also pass that on to their constituents.
The ACT government also invests on average over $18 million per year on road maintenance, including street sweeping a distance of 15,000 kilometres each year, replacing or repairing close to 5,000 road signs, resurfacing of over one million square metres of road pavement, repairing over 4,000 potholes, and replacing over 18,400 square metres of damaged footpath and cycle paths.
Madam Assistant Speaker, as you know, the Barr Labor government will also invest in more road maintenance funding. We will undertake a road resealing blitz, with an additional $6 million to be invested across the city to ensure our roads are well maintained and safe for all road users. This will be in addition to our regular resealing program. It was part of our costed roads plan that we took to last year’s election.
I will comment also on our significant cycle and footpath network. Of course, the city was built in different periods and across many suburbs in Canberra the design standards of the days when that suburb was built are not the same as the design standards of today. Many suburbs were built without footpaths. There is an extensive program underway to maintain existing footpaths and install footpaths where there were none originally installed. I particularly note the age-friendly suburbs program which has been underway for a couple of years. That focused initially on Kaleen and Monash and will be rolled out to a number of other suburbs across the ACT. It is specifically for aged Canberrans, to make sure they can move easily, by both walking and cycling, if they wish to, around their local suburbs, particularly to places of significant community interest like local shopping centres and community centres. That will be in addition to ongoing work to invest in our cycling and footpath network.
Every element of our infrastructure network supports the essential transport and city services that the ACT government works very hard every day to provide, improve and maintain. Of course, as we grow as a city to nearly 400,000 people, that will remain a key priority for me, as I spoke of in my priorities statement in the last sittings. We will continue to invest in this infrastructure, and we will also continue to look very closely at a preventive maintenance schedule, as I also indicated in my priorities statement, to make sure our infrastructure is well maintained into the future.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (4.40): This MPI is about the importance of better road maintenance. Some people come into this place with grand visions of making a difference. Many members, particularly on the other side of this chamber, passionately believe that they can move heaven and earth and have a big say on national and global matters. There is a belief from many on the other side that they can change the world from here on London Circuit, and that is their belief as to why they were elected to this place.
Ultimately, I guess we should applaud such noble sentiment, but I think it is naive sentiment. We are not here to change the world. We are actually here to make the city
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video