Page 3372 - Week 09 - Thursday, 22 August 2019
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I live in Theodore. Theodore has been smashed by the changes to the bus network. We have young adults in our house who were relying on the bus network to get them to school, university and work. That has changed under the new network. They have both been forced to purchase motor vehicles. Our 17-year-old would have needed to catch a bus at 6.15 am to get to school on time for two of her weekday starts. That is ludicrous.
I know that Mr Steel will rattle off journey numbers being on the increase. He will try to spin it and say that there has never been a better time to travel on public transport in Canberra. Mr Steel needs to come with me and walk around Wanniassa. I do not know if he is walking around Kambah. He certainly needs to come and walk around Theodore and down in the Lanyon Valley. Mr Steel should walk with me and talk to those people and answer the questions that they will have about Xpresso services and stacks of other things.
I want to give you a hypothetical today. I want you to imagine that I am an elderly woman living in Theodore. My husband passed away some months ago and I miss him dearly. He is buried at the Gungahlin cemetery, because there is no other option in the ACT in terms of burial. There is not one that is closer. If I was to catch a bus to go and visit my beloved who is buried in Gungahlin—I have it here on Google maps—it would take me one hour and 53 minutes one way. I would get the 79 at 3.32 from Theodore. I would walk three minutes to get that bus at Chippindall and take it to the Tuggeranong interchange, which would get me there at 3.52. I would then get a 4 to Belconnen. Goodness me. I am going to end up at the city interchange at 4.36. I am going to get the tram from there to EPIC racecourse, which sees me there at 4.55. Then I am going to walk 2.1 kilometres to the Norwood Park Crematorium. Basically, that means that if I am that elderly woman whose husband passed away and whose husband did all the driving, I cannot access that through public transport. I can no longer do it.
Alistair wrote to me—no, it is not Alistair Coe—and said:
As I reflect on the changes to bus timetables with main arterial routes having been given preference over service to suburban streets it occurs to me that these reforms discriminate against those who need proximity to bus services, that is the elderly—
and the economically disadvantaged—
This is shameful from the paint a roundabout Barr administration and I hope you can make that case strongly.
That is Alistair.
I know that as soon as I am standing up here and I mention rainbow roundabouts, there will be people, whether they be on the other side or just haters from the left, who will suggest that I am dismissing our LGBTIQ community and that the shock jock is coming out in me. I would say to those people: seriously, grow up. I would refer them to former Chief Minister John Stanhope in CityNews on 5 June this year, in yet
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