Page 2916 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
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Amendment agreed to.
Original question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative.
Transport Canberra—weekend bus service cancellations
MISS C BURCH (Kurrajong) (3.40): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes that:
(a) thousands of Canberrans rely on weekend bus services to travel around the city, and weekend service cancellations have led to many Canberrans being stranded at bus stops without any alternative;
(b) since the commencement of Network19, Transport Canberra has failed to achieve its stated target of 99.5 per cent of total services delivered to completion on weekends;
(c) over the two-month period from May to June this year there have been well over 2 000 cancellations of weekend bus services;
(d) the Transport Workers’ Union raised concerns to the ACT Government regarding weekend staffing levels before the new network was implemented and these concerns were not addressed; and
(e) as of today, the ACT Government has failed to deliver the bus network it promised Canberrans; and
(2) calls on the Minister for Transport and City Services to:
(a) explain to the Assembly what the Government is doing to improve the provision of real-time information about cancelled services to customers; and
(b) provide an updated weekend timetable that reflects the availability of weekend bus drivers by Wednesday of each week, so that Canberrans can plan their weekend travel accordingly.
For months now, we have witnessed the steady degradation of the reliability of our bus network. For many Canberrans, catching a bus on the weekend is a roll of the dice, and, increasingly, they do not favour their odds.
I do not blame them. I do not blame the passengers who are returning to their cars, having waited three hours for a bus that never arrives. I do not blame the bus drivers and transport officers who are working tirelessly to keep the system running under such public scrutiny. And I do not blame the Canberra taxpayer who is footing the bill for an inadequate and unreliable network.
I blame an unconcerned and out of touch Labor-Greens government, a government that really should have had the foresight to see this problem coming but who have instead buried their heads in the sand; a government that has continued to promise a network that they cannot deliver.
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