Page 2099 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2018
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portal to better match the schedule to the needs of Canberra seasonal changes; and
(b) establish a minimum timeframe to respond to street sweeping requests lodged on the Fix My Street website.
Canberra’s trees are a big part of what makes our city such a great place to live. My team and I have enjoyed many electorate walks in Kurrajong to admire the autumnal red, orange and yellow leaves from the huge range of trees in our city. However, as sure as autumn follows summer, I know we will inevitably see these leaves turn brown and collect, sometimes knee-deep, in our gutters. As a community that greatly values our bush capital tag and is fiercely protective of our trees, it is important that with the beauty of having lots of trees comes a great responsibility to ensure we are doing the right thing when it comes to the fallen leaves. This is why I bring this motion today, to call on the government to undertake an audit and review its street sweeping schedule and to better inform Canberrans of exactly when their street will be swept so that all Canberrans can have the benefit of tree-lined streets whilst being responsible for what happens to the leaves once they fall to the ground.
The minister claims that every year over 16,000 cubic metres of litter is swept from Canberra’s streets. However, despite this, leaves still languish in gutters in many streets of Canberra, particularly in my electorate of Kurrajong, for many weeks and sometimes months. From here they are swept down the drains by rainfall and end up in our stormwater system.
I welcome the government’s education campaign to help citizens keep nutrients on their properties and out of the waterways through its H2OK “only rain down the stormwater drain” campaign, with thanks to funding from the federal coalition government. We all know that leaves can be composted and provide a helpful source of mulch. However, many Canberrans either have no need for leaf mulch or find themselves inundated by the sheer quantity that street trees produce in addition to their own garden trees.
The government appears to have published the same media release for many years now asking Canberrans not to sweep their leaves into the gutters. Yet we can all agree that this appears to be not working when the government’s street sweeping procedure is inconsistent and jobs logged through the fix my street website are not actioned quickly or residents are not kept in the loop about what is happening.
No doubt the government will be responding to my motion by patting themselves on the back about the rollout of the green bins across Canberra, and indeed this will be helpful to those Canberrans who regularly collect leaves from their own nature strips and gardens. However, when will this government stop dragooning Canberrans into the jobs that they should be doing? The fix my street website is already relied on to highlight areas of Canberra which need repair but now the government will expect Canberrans to sweep the leaves from streets and place them into a green bin rather than admit the current sweeping schedule is lacking.
Leaves in the gutters and across Canberra’s streets are often washed down into the stormwater system by rain, where they can cause blockages, flood roads and require
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