Page 4703 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 31 October 2017
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our community of upcoming scheduled maintenance, be that the mowing schedule, potholes, wayward shopping trollies or when the green waste bin will be collected in the trial suburbs of Weston Creek and Kambah. The new map feature of fix my street is particularly exciting as it gives a real sense of how engaged our community is in service delivery.
Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to praise Chief Minister Barr. All right-minded members should recognise the integrity he brings to inclusive community participation in government service delivery. His commitment to focusing community participation on the important, rather than the sensational, is demonstrated by the citizens jury on compulsory third-party insurance. By taking on this issue, a number of feathers have been ruffled around this town. Any member of this place who pays attention to their inboxes is no doubt highly aware of the strong interests advocating in this policy area. Not content that current arrangements are delivering well enough for the victims of road trauma, the Chief Minister has demonstrated leadership on this too often overlooked matter.
Led by Mr Barr, this government has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to genuine processes of community participation. After having closely watched the yoursay.act.gov.au website through the extensive consultation for light rail stage 2, I returned there today to look at the current consultations. Members of the community are invited to consult on the next budget process, city services, naming West Basin’s new park, the future of education, Haig Park and many, many more.
These consultations have done a lot to make our community and our city better and provide a stark contrast to the fake consultation being done on the imitation have your say website. Like many imitations, that site, a phishing website attempting to capture data by misleading citizens into thinking they are dealing with the government, appears amateurish and misleads few. Citizens should beware of these sorts of websites, the risk of theft and misuse of their personal data and the lack of integrity of the processes and people behind them. Fortunately, when dealing with ACT government consultations and community participation mechanisms, Canberrans can be confident in the integrity of the processes.
This social democratic government values genuine community participation on government service delivery, including through fix my street, and I encourage everyone in the community to get involved.
MR MILLIGAN (Yerrabi) (3.56): I thank Ms Cody for raising this important matter, and it is important. The people of the ACT certainly think that it is important to engage with their government, important enough to lodge more than 47½ thousand requests through the fix my street portal. The Canberra Liberals’ have your say website also generates a significant response from participating local residents, many of whom complain about unaddressed or unresolved issues in their suburbs. My office is also testimony to the engaged people of Canberra, with more than half of the complaints fielded by my office from concerned people telling us that reporting on fix my street fixes nothing, with many issues remaining unresolved for long periods.
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