Page 3131 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 20 August 2019
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Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: I warn you, Mr Hanson.
MS LE COUTEUR: Minister Steel did behave disrespectfully to the Assembly last week. In this, I totally agree with Miss Burch. I particularly thank her for reminding me of the questions without notice that she asked on Thursday, when the minister’s answer could hardly be described as useful or informative and was possibly not even accurate. Obviously I do not know the exact chronology of the minister’s thoughts on this, but “unhelpful” would be the most positive description you could give. However, the real point in this is trying to get a better public transport system. Probably the only positive that we can get out of this is that the status of our weekend bus services has considerably risen in this Assembly and for the community as a whole.
I want to say very clearly that I think it is very good that the ACT government is trying to be ambitious and have a weekend bus service that will mean that people in Canberra—the third of people in Canberra who do not drive, in particular—have a real way of going out over the weekend. It is great that we have gone past the idea that you just catch the bus to commute to work and for everything else you should use your own car. I really applaud that. Unfortunately, the execution has only been 89 per cent satisfactory and I understand that on some weekends it has gone down to only 80 per cent satisfactory. As everybody agreed on Wednesday, this is simply not good enough.
I am really pleased to see that, as a result of this the Liberal Party has gotten on board the concept that we want a real, viable public transport system. At some stages it has not always been obvious that that is the case.
Going briefly to my amendments, I have attempted to be factual and positive, looking to the future. The first two acknowledge the recent unfortunate decision to cut bus services despite recent commitments to resolve the weekend bus services—that was not a good move—and that during the debate the minister did not advise the Assembly that he was considering announcing cuts to weekend services within 48 hours of the Assembly’s resolution, again, a very poor move, very disrespectful.
Part (c) of the motion has more accurate figures for weekend service reliability. But whatever way you put it, it is simply not good enough. There has been a failure of the ACT government to deliver reliable weekend services under network 19.
Part (2) of the motion says:
… calls on the Government, drivers and unions to negotiate a future enterprise agreement that allows the delivery of frequent and reliable weekend services equivalent to those contained in Network19 …
My understanding is that if all the parties to an enterprise bargaining agreement want to renegotiate an agreement, they can do so at any time. It is true that it has been signed for a period of time, but that is not something which stops the government
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