Page 419 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 18 February 2020
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We have made the announcement that we will be increasing the span of light rail services on Sundays. They will now start from 7 am from term 2, as opposed to 8 am, which will provide further support for workers wishing to go to work early on light rail and connect with bus services. We will increase the frequency of bus services as well as undertaking a range of other measures to increase the number of bus drivers. We have just seen in the recent budget review more funding for 43 additional drivers, which will help to support frequent, reliable weekend services being provided.
We will continue to take measures. We will continue to invest in public transport in this city, both on weekdays and at the weekend. We have seen the positive results of more people using public transport on the weekend. That is very promising. But we want to continue to invest and to improve services on the weekend so that even more people can use public transport in the future.
Building—reforms
MS CHEYNE: My question is to the Minister for Building Quality Improvement. Minister, can you please update the Assembly on reforms in the building portfolio?
MR RAMSAY: I thank Ms Cheyne for this important question. The government is pushing forward with its reforms to the building industry, and that is because we want Canberrans to have the highest quality buildings in the country. There are two main drivers of these reforms: our own reform program, which came out of the 2016 review of the building system, and the Building confidence report, that was commissioned by the Building Ministers Forum. We have been undertaking extensive consultation in the industry on the builders code of practice. This covers issues such as staged inspections and the supervision of building sites.
We have developed a course for building certifiers so that they better understand the ACT’s building regulatory system. This course is now live, and it helps us to ensure that certifiers know their parts in the system and what their roles and their responsibilities are. We have made it clearer for consumers, when they are appointing a certifier, so that it is not just buried in a building contract. We have been methodically rolling out reforms to improve the building industry. I look forward to being able to update the Assembly when we have completed 43 of our own reforms by 30 June this year, and I will also continuing to update the Assembly on the work on the Building confidence report that has been undertaken here and nationally on behalf of the Building Ministers Forum.
MS CHEYNE: Minister, can you please update the Assembly on how we are tracking against the ACT building reforms and the Building confidence report?
MR RAMSAY: I thank Ms Cheyne for the supplementary question, a very important question because they are very important reforms. I am very happy to report on this.
Here in the ACT, in our own reform program we have completed 31 of the 43 reforms. Most of the substantial implementation work has now been completed. We have made many of the changes to the law; we have implemented many of the substantive reforms; and much of what now remains is evaluative work.
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