Page 47 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 11 February 2020
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Commissioner Whelan and the ESA who have been doing a remarkable job keeping the community up to date with the latest information.
The Emergency Services Agency has several public information strategies that provide advice to the community on any actions they should be taking during an emergency. They include but are not limited to posts to social media, including ESA’s Twitter and Facebook pages; publication of messages on the ESA website; and a memorandum of understanding with media outlets for transmission of public information on radio and TV. The ESA also maintains an emergency alert capability which can be used to broadcast warning messages directly to mobile telephones and landlines in any area in the ACT and has been working closely with New South Wales to ensure that the Fires Near Me app provides up-to-date information regarding fire activity in and around the ACT.
Volunteers from the ACT Rural Fire Service and the ACT State Emergency Service have also been out in the community, at shopping centres and in town centres keeping the community updated and helping residents complete their bushfire survival plans. These measures, in addition to the doorknocking efforts of ACT Policing, SES and the ADF in our bushfire-prone areas, have ensured that our community has remained well informed and well prepared during this bushfire season.
Transport Canberra—network 19
MR WALL: To continue on a theme, my question is to the Minister for Transport. Minister, I refer to an article published in CityNews titled “ACT Labor cuts weekend bus services”. Minister, why didn’t you admit that network 19 was a failure when you were forced to cut weekend bus services following its initial implementation?
MR STEEL: I thank the member for his question. This issue was canvassed significantly in the Assembly last year, and this week I will be tabling the quarterly update on our weekend bus action plan. I have made announcements that we will increase the frequency of weekend bus services during the day on Saturdays from term 2. This is the result of work that we have been doing under the 10 actions under the action plan to recruit more drivers, to have standby drivers available on weekends.
As a result of the changes last year that the member refers to, bus reliability has been hovering at around 99.8 per cent every week. It was an important change to make until we recruited more bus drivers, and we will continue that recruitment on an ongoing basis to make sure that we have more bus drivers available to work on the weekends. Then we will be looking at other actions under the action plan heading into the next enterprise agreement, talking with transport workers and their representatives about the enterprise agreement, and taking further actions to provide better information to customers about weekend services and network changes.
MR WALL: Minister, will you guarantee commuters that the subsequent changes you have made to network 19 will not subsequently be cut, just like the weekend services previously were, when the new network comes into effect?
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