Page 2812 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 13 August 2019
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Playgrounds are another area about which I get a lot of queries, comments and sometimes complaints. People are generally not so much complaining but requesting improvements. They are not always asking for brand-new play spaces but better maintenance and upkeep of the ones we have. The upgrade and improvement of play spaces is listed as a government priority in budget statements H. A couple of million dollars is allocated for play space upgrades, expected to be completed by June 2020. This is a good thing that will, as I understand it, meet the changing demands of the community and provide additional opportunities for nature play, for example. It is a great objective. But there are areas where people have asked and asked and asked for improvements and have been knocked back.
Richardson is getting a whole-of-suburb play space refresh, which is fantastic. I am sure people in Richardson are really pleased, and I am really pleased about that too. But I can tell you that in over six years in this place I have never received one request for an upgrade in Richardson. Where has this come from? I have received requests from other suburbs—Wanniassa, Oxley, Chisholm, Calwell, Fadden, Greenway; it goes on and on—but not one from Richardson. I am bemused as to how this has come about. That is not to say that Richardson should not get the upgrade—it is a great thing—but what is the process? Why are some chosen over others?
For example, there was a petition some time ago about a playground in Greenway near Lake Tuggeranong, near the learn-to-ride park. I think 175 to 200 people signed that petition. People love that learn-to-ride park; it has been a fantastic success. I commend the government, and I did at the time, for putting in that learn-to-ride park. It is really popular. Often you cannot get a car park because there are so many families who have gone there with their kids and their bikes. It is fantastic to see kids out in the fresh air and the sunshine—it is cold at this time of the year, but that is fine.
Almost next door to the learn-to-ride park is a small playground which is enormously popular. We have asked over and over and over again about a shade sail. (Second speaking period taken.) I understand that the person who runs the little coffee van near there, Mimi’s Pit Stop, wrote about a burn a child suffered going down the slide because of the heat. In March someone from Minister Steel’s office wrote:
TCCS are going to be installing a shade sail at the playground on Mortimer Lewis Drive.
It is more than five months since that email and there has been neither a shade sail nor a commitment to a shade sail. I asked two separate questions about a shade sail for that playground during estimates and the answers to those two questions were, “No shade sail is being considered at this point for that playground.” Why did they write to this member of the community on 21 March this year saying, “Yes, we’re going to install a shade sail at the playground on Mortimer Lewis Drive”? Was this just fobbing off this constituent to shut them up for a while? It clearly has not happened, and according to the minister’s answers it is not going to happen. That is an appalling way to treat that constituent.
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