Page 2945 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 15 August 2018
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stop treating Canberrans with the disdain that has characterised the way in which they conduct consultation on everything from P-plater laws to the new bus network.
We have heard from school principals who have walked away from the consultation process feeling as if these changes were already a done deal. We have heard from parents, the elderly and many commuters who feel that Transport Canberra’s roadshows have been laughable.
A comprehensive network overhaul of this magnitude affects everyone. Everyone should have an opportunity to comment, and a lot of people have. We have seen over 8,000 responses, in fact, and they are not happy. As my colleagues and I have witnessed countless times in these public meetings and roadshows, often when residents air their frustrations they are told by public officials to wait until after the meeting as public officials are all too often not willing to address their concerns publicly.
We have heard from countless parents who are afraid, and rightly so, of putting their primary school aged children onto public buses that will take them to crowded and potentially dangerous interchanges. We have heard from parents of children who suffer from disabilities whose access to direct school buses represents the only option for them to get to and from school.
We have heard stories of the 70 and 80-year-old residents whose direct access to public transport will be cut under the new network, leaving them socially isolated and unable to get around Canberra. Further, we have heard at numerous community meetings how mothers and fathers will have less time each morning and evening to spend with their families because of added travel times. We have heard how the extra 15 or 20 minute walk to and from the bus stop places further inconvenience on so many people and makes their door-to-door commute that much longer and more difficult.
I agree with Transport Canberra’s deputy director, Duncan Edgehill, that individual circumstances change. But when you receive hundreds of responses from Canberrans who hail from all walks of life, all disgruntled and disappointed about the proposed changes, it is not something you can so easily dismiss.
But what did Minister Fitzharris do with the feedback similar to what I have just described? She changed the game. This is a government that loves to move the goalposts. Time and time again, we have seen directorates fall short of indicators and targets not being met, or media articles criticising government decisions, and instead of pulling up their socks and admitting to these shortcomings and working to fix them, they have just changed how these things are measured.
I draw the Assembly’s attention to the government’s your say website, which hosted the submissions for the consultation process on the new bus network. Despite reassurances from both the deputy director and Minister Fitzharris herself that the consultation process would focus on how these proposed changes would affect Canberrans, the language on the website significantly begs to differ. The website reads:
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