Page 2949 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
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issues outside the ACT jurisdiction that we too often see in this place. Mr Pettersson’s motion, however, ignores all of the issues with the current transport network that we continue to hear about across our city.
Had Mr Pettersson paid any attention during estimates, he would have understood just how badly his government’s new integrated transport network has impacted Canberrans across the territory. If he had been paying attention, he would know that there were over 4,000 complaints made to Transport Canberra regarding the new bus network, which is not accessible, convenient or reliable. To come into this place and sing the praises of a project that has come at the cost of a reliable bus network for all Canberrans is unacceptable and does a disservice to many across our territory. Mr Pettersson is adding insult to injury to the thousands of Canberrans who have lost their regular school services and regular suburban bus routes and who have their weekend services constantly cancelled.
The government is desperately attempting to make out that the new transport network is a raging success, but it is a very different story if you speak to the thousands of residents in Tuggeranong and the south side of Canberra who are battling to get onto a bus to make it to work on time. Ask the parents of primary school children who have to catch four buses every day to get to and from school or the 7,000 Canberrans who have signed petitions since the beginning of April saying what they really think about this Labor-Greens government’s transport system.
The light rail might be bringing people to and from Gungahlin and the city, but the duties of this government go well beyond the 90,000-odd people in Mr Pettersson’s electorate and beyond the Canberrans who live along the network, the light rail line. The government needs to stop and think about all of these residents across Canberra.
If Mr Pettersson actually cared about his constituents, he would have noted that only six of the 22 schools in his electorate have access to one dedicated school bus route. He would have also noted that the other 16 have all had dedicated school services cut by his government. Instead, his motion fails to mention the thousands of residents that this transport minister has left behind. Unfortunately, for these thousands of residents, we are yet to see any Labor members willing to bring forward motions in this place calling on the government to explore the possibility of increasing network connectivity in their suburbs.
Mr Pettersson’s motion references the success of light rail but forgets to mention the mountain of building quality and safety concerns around light rail stage 1: exposed electrical wiring and construction issues, a litany of near misses with members of the general public and a $500,000 light rail launch party, all conveniently left out of this motion today. We have a certifier conveniently let go, and the Electrical Trades Union deeply concerned with the quality of the project. And let us not forget the under-resourcing and lack of training for the emergency services teams, who have a whole new set of challenges to deal with following the commencement of light rail.
One of the problems with light rail was always going to be the lack of scalability of services, particularly in peak times. This is obviously something that the government needs to address, but to continue to ignore the way in which so many Canberrans have
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