Page 545 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 21 February 2018
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You will see the constituent’s despair, not only hers but also her young children’s, over the accidents that occur on the corner of Tillyard Drive and Ginninderra Drive. In particular you will note her comment that, “It’s second nature to dial 000. I know some of the operators.”
In response to that, I got a letter during the caretaker period, which was written by an official and not by a minister, and the author said:
Despite improvements implemented as part of the Federal Black Spot program, accidents are still occurring … with a total of 23 reported incidents in the last two years … Of these, eight crashes involved injuries.
And the official goes on to say:
Roads ACT has listed it for further investigation as part of the current year’s program and will seek to progress safety improvements as part of a future works program.
What we hear from that is that there is a need for further investigation and there is a need for future work. The minister has been quite coy about it, saying, “Oh, I can’t be forced to say anything about this because it’s out of the budget cycle.” We have an appropriation bill before the Assembly at the moment. It has been referred for inquiry, and there are capital amounts of money in it that might be considered by my constituents a lesser priority than work being done on the Ginninderra Drive and Tillyard Drive intersection.
The government is hiding behind the fact that there is a budget process, and the minister has put herself out there today saying that she will advocate for this and she will work for this. So if we come to June and Mrs Kikkert and I do not find works scheduled for Ginninderra Drive, we will know that this minister has once again failed. She will have failed the people of Ginninderra by not delivering on something which she says is a priority and that she will be working hard on it. In the meantime, we are in a situation where the people of Ginninderra are waiting. They are waiting for the government to plough through the investigations, to plough through the constituents’ complaints, to plough through the accident data and to consider the trauma that local residents suffer.
One local resident who wrote to me—and this resident lives in Latham, backing onto the area, and lives quite close by—and said it is utterly traumatic for her and her family to listen to the constant screeching and sometimes the crunching of cars. The near misses are as bad as the actual collisions, because every time you hear that screeching of brakes you wonder what is going to happen next. My constituents find that extremely trying and difficult to live with. So it is time for the minister, in addition to tabling this report, to come good with some money for this intersection. The whole issue of Tillyard Drive and Ginninderra Drive and the access in this area is an important one and it has been much overlooked by this government. It is time for action on behalf of the people of Ginninderra.
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