Page 1748 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
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commutes. What is most appalling about the new transport network is that it affects the most vulnerable people in our community.
Children have been left without dedicated bus routes, forced to walk long distances alone across dangerous intersections and wait at unsafe bus stops. Canberra parents have continuously raised obvious and significant concerns about their children’s safety under the new transport network but the minister continues to ignore these concerns. This is why today the Canberra Liberals are calling on Minister Fitzharris to properly assess the impact that these cuts have had on student safety and release this information. Canberra parents have a very clear, basic and reasonable expectation that the government prioritise getting children to and from school safely. But Minister Fitzharris is so out of touch that she continues to ignore this.
It has been just over two weeks since the new network commenced but let us not forget that the anxiety, uncertainty and anger caused by these changes began months ago. If we look back to 2018 when the changes were first announced, this government received over 13,000 submissions during the consultation period but reluctantly made very few changes. Record consultation, the minister spruiked but she reluctantly made very few changes to the school bus routes.
Minister Fitzharris, Canberrans told you months ago that this new network would not work. Parents told us that they would be forced to drive their children to school because they did not want to entrust the safety of their children to the few extra staff employed at interchanges. Students told us that this new network would make it harder for them to get to school on time and that it would take longer for them to get home in the afternoon.
Canberrans told us that cuts to dedicated school bus services would mean that children in places like Tuggeranong and Belconnen would be left stranded and forced to walk many kilometres with their heavy backpacks to get to public buses. And yet the minister has persisted. Had it not been for the hard work and absolute determination of parents who had been left behind by the government across the territory, even more schools would be without dedicated school buses than what we are seeing today.
What is perhaps worse is that we have heard very little from the minister since the network’s commencement, instead choosing to send spokesperson after spokesperson to address this public outcry. The minister has refused meetings with concerned principals and parents, and Canberrans who have contacted her office to pass on their concerns have received either a cut and paste reply or none at all. The minister, too afraid to confront these failings, has buried her head in the sand, hoping that all this negativity will just disappear.
I refer to the Canberra Times article dated 4 May titled “Bus timetables leave children in tears”. The article describes just how distressed and anxious the cuts to dedicated school buses have left students. This is the same network that the minister claims has been a great success. Whilst the article refers to students at Radford College, the feedback my office and the offices of my colleagues have received from concerned parents in other schools has all been troublingly similar.
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