Page 476 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 February 2020
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
They are two articles published just over a year apart, both describing the same story and the same old issues.
These are not insignificant numbers. There were over 10,000 submissions to the your say consultation process in 2018, over 10,000 signatories to petitions in 2019, and over 40 news articles detailing all of these concerns and all of these impacts on Canberrans across the territory. But we are supposed to just believe the minister when he claims that he needed six months of new network data to tell him what Canberrans had been telling him for months before the network had even begun.
The minister claimed last week that he is briefed every week on the data. Which data would that be, Madam Assistant Speaker? The patronage data that showed that patronage was down five per cent in Woden and Tuggeranong? The customer satisfaction data that has been at its lowest levels in years, at 62 per cent? Perhaps he is referring to Labor’s polling data, showing that the minister needed to do something in an election year to stop haemorrhaging votes down south.
What has the outcome of all this listening been? Let us look at his track record. Canberrans told Mr Steel that cuts to dedicated school services would cause anxiety and stress for children. The minister then rolled out a network which cut dedicated school services and left children in tears. Did he apologise? No. Parents told him that they would return to their cars if school-aged children were made to use the public network. The minister then endangered the safety of schoolchildren by forcing them to change at interchanges, and school student patronage on weekdays fell as a result. Did he apologise? No.
Seniors and mobility impaired Canberrans told Minister Steel that they would not be able to get to the doctor or see their friends because of the extra walking distance needed to access the bus network. The minister then cut over 750 bus stops and confined elderly and mobility impaired people to their homes. Has he apologised for this? No.
The TWU told the minister and the government months, if not years, ago that they would not have enough drivers to staff the new network weekend timetable. The minister promised Canberrans that they would have a true seven-day network, but instead went on to cancel heaps of weekend services. Will he apologise? No.
Instead of pulling his socks up, doing the hard yards and fixing the chaos that his government has created, Minister Steel has resorted to spreading blatant mistruths and using dirty tactics. He said last week in the chamber:
The opposition wants to cut 22 services in peak times. That is their policy; they have announced and reiterated this policy this week. They will cut 22 buses.
This is a complete fabrication by the minister to hide from the school services, the bus stops and the weekend services that he and his government have cut.
You can tell that the minister is on the back foot because he has been searching far and wide for any good news story that distracts from his inability to fix this chaos. We
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video