Page 2755 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 16 August 2017
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The budget also commits funding to extend the age-friendly suburbs program to Page and Hughes to upgrade walking infrastructure. This project will help the elderly and mobility-impaired in Page to get out and about in their suburb.
We recently announced the new Canberra bike stops initiative. This grassroots scheme will let small businesses nominate as bike stops. Businesses may provide facilities such as showers, change rooms, bag storage and bike pumps for cyclists in their area. Participating businesses will be marked on an online map, and may benefit from increased cyclist patronage. The government is also investing in the viability of bike sharing in Canberra and is seeking community feedback on this idea to guide future policy. I encourage everyone to have their say.
The ACT government is committed to providing a public transport and active travel network that is accessible, flexible and fully integrated. We are providing options for people to get out of autodrive in their automobile and enjoy the benefits of public transport and active travel. I think it is, frankly, extraordinary that the opposition thinks we should cease talking about public and active transport. We have done a lot of work here, but there is more work to do and it is absolutely going to continue to be part of the conversations about the future of our great city.
I encourage everyone to explore their local travel options and to make the most of our public transport and active travel network across Canberra, because you never know: it could be the start of your own $25 billion idea.
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee) (11.03), in reply: Canberrans voted at the election not to return to the past, with a transport system for our growing city of the future. It was interesting to see Mr Coe strap on his flux capacitor and hold up the omnibus network of the 1980s as the gold standard. It is back to the future with the Canberra Liberals, Madam Assistant Speaker.
The ACT government is building an integrated transport system for our modern city of this century, not the last. The route alignment is an important input into our business case for stage 2, and the government is rightly undertaking that work in consultation with the community. I encourage all members of the community, especially on the south side, to engage with this process as it goes forward and make a contribution to what is their project, which will be one of the largest infrastructure projects in Woden’s history.
We have a strange system of government here in the ACT, because sometimes our parliamentary system is not just about holding government to account: it is also necessary sometimes to shine a light on the alternative government and their policies. That is why sometimes we need to give this lot a hard time, to get them to engage in some self-reflection on some of their failed policies. That is the period that we are now in following the election: four more years of opposition. The original motion that I put on the notice paper reflected some facts about the Liberals.
Mr Coe: You dropped it. Why did you drop it?
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