Page 854 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2018
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grandparents. I receive a significant amount of correspondence around playgrounds, often in recognition of the many play spaces that we have available to our community right across the territory. All of this correspondence recognises their vital role in providing for an active lifestyle for all people in the ACT, starting with young people—but people of all ages.
The benefits of outdoor play for children are well documented, as you noted and know well, Mr Assistant Speaker. This includes developing motor skills, the many health benefits found through exercise, developing social skills and connecting with the natural environment. Importantly, play spaces also provide a social connection for parents and carers. In many locations play spaces form an important community hub.
The government’s policy position on play spaces identifies some important principles for play spaces, including that they are accessible, diverse, stimulating, and manageable. Playground infrastructure in the ACT provides a broad range of social and economic benefits to our community and inherently complements community activities and social connection.
On behalf of the government, Transport Canberra and City Services maintains over 500 playgrounds across the ACT, with additional playgrounds built each year in new suburbs. This has continued to grow, as has been noted, with an average of five additional new playgrounds being gifted to the government to manage each year over the past six years. Major and minor upgrades to existing playgrounds also continue to occur, with natural play places now providing play opportunities at targeted destination parks that service wider catchment areas, such as the ones recently completed at Tuggeranong Town Park and at Telopea Park in Barton.
Like many other Canberra suburbs built in the 1960s and 1970s, Waramanga’s local infrastructure, including playgrounds, is getting older and presents challenges. It may not meet the needs of communities today, and it does present some challenges in ongoing maintenance. The ongoing maintenance of existing playgrounds is very important. Across the ACT more than 26,000 safety inspections are undertaken to the Australian playground standards. This includes undertaking an annual independent playground compliance and safety audit to assist in identifying future upgrade priorities.
Again, I congratulate the Waramanga community as a whole on their proposal and appreciate the significant consultation and campaigning on the importance of a playground at their local shops. I also thank the Weston Creek Community Council for their recent budget submission identifying the need for a new playground in Waramanga as a result of something I know the community council is celebrating: the community’s changing demographic make-up. I recognise that they have been working hard together to support the proposal for a new playground, and in their work recently in the lead-up to this year’s Waramanga and Weston Creek 50th anniversary.
As has been noted, a number of local communities have older playgrounds and have likewise campaigned for improvements to these playgrounds over the past two years, including through petitions for Greenway, Torrens, Higgins, Farrer and Giralang. The community campaigns across the ACT that have been mentioned highlight the
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