Page 4031 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 20 September 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
drop-in consultation sessions or register to attend a workshop. And the community will be further engaged with the start of the participatory budgeting process as well in 2019.
We are investing in renewing our neighbourhoods, improving the existing suburban infrastructure of Canberra and investing in the maintenance services associated with that infrastructure as well as improving the responsiveness of government to the community. We want to improve on the services that we deliver, and that is why I am so pleased that the government has announced community consultation on the better suburbs statement, a long-term vision for the delivery of city services for Canberra. I commend the motion to the Assembly.
MS FITZHARRIS (Yerrabi—Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Minister for Transport and City Services and Minister for Higher Education, Training and Research) (6.10): I thank Ms Orr for bringing forward this motion and thank everyone for their contributions so far today. As the minister responsible for this area, I note all the comments made by my colleagues about the terrific work that staff in TCCS do, and I join with them in commending the staff, who are really our frontline in service delivery right across the territory every day. I encourage everyone, no matter what their views are about city services, to give our staff a wave, say hello and tell them what a great job they are doing.
I make particular mention, as Mr Steel just noted, of the better suburbs consultation that we opened yesterday. I could talk for some time about the vast number of services that are delivered, and some of the challenges in service delivery have been noted today. I commend the better suburbs consultation and engagement which we launched yesterday. As Mr Steel said, it is now available on the your say website. This will be a terrific opportunity for Canberrans and all members of the Assembly to have some input into not just the next couple of weeks or months but the next five to 10 years of city services delivery across the city as we grow, as new parts of our city start to be developed and as older suburbs in our city need to have some revitalisation. Many of those issues have been raised today.
I particularly commend to community, industry and business groups the opportunity to provide to us ideas about innovation, about better ways that we can deliver our services and about better practices they are aware of that can inform the better suburbs program. I note Ms Le Couteur’s view that already formal and informal community groups are out there playing a role in helping to keep neighbourhood parks and local waterways clean. They also contribute, and we want to be able to recognise and continue to work with them and find new and simpler ways of being able to engage with the community on this.
I look forward to as many people as possible filling out the survey and joining in the subsequent facilitated workshops across the territory in November and December of this year, and also in February and March next year. They will give everyone a really great opportunity to get into some more detailed discussions about the issues we are talking about here. As has been noted, these are services that every Canberran—no matter where you live, no matter your age, no matter your background—comes into contact with every day, right across Canberra.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video