Page 2236 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
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Members interjecting—
MR MILLLIGAN: You may not like it, but he speaks truthfully here. He said:
My electorate are keen to know if Minister Steel is working hard to lose or just doesn’t care about maintaining our city’s parks, green space and paths.
Just this week I have been contacted by two constituents, Ian from Amaroo and Ana from Franklin, who have tripped and fallen on badly maintained and broken footpaths. Both have received injuries from these falls. The response from your government was to send “one of those patronising and useless letters that this Labor-Greens government is now infamous for”, as Costigan put it. Minister, why can’t your government get the basics right and give the ratepayers of our city safe and well-maintained footpaths?
MR STEEL: I thank the member for his question. Our government has invested a significant amount of money over the last four years and the last few months, and has built over 50 new footpaths just over the period of the pandemic, to protect and create jobs and to make our city more accessible for people from all walks of life, including older people in our community.
When those issues are raised with me and with Transport Canberra and City Services, we take them seriously. We go out and assess those issues and we look at how we can repair those paths, as part of our community footpath priority list. We do that over a period of time. Our government has been investing in that footpath maintenance because we want to protect and create local jobs and make our city more accessible, and we will continue to do that.
MR MILLIGAN: Minister, will you commit to acknowledging to Ian and Ana from Yerrabi the failure of your government to maintain footpaths?
MR STEEL: Our government will continue our approach of taking residents’ concerns seriously, investigating those concerns and keeping up maintenance of our footpaths and all other services across our city.
MS LAWDER: Minister, should we just change your title to “minister for city disservices”?
Mr Steel: A point of order, Madam Speaker. It is another ironical expression.
MADAM SPEAKER: It was probably an ill-informed question, but I think you can dismiss it, if you choose to answer it, minister.
MR STEEL: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will take your advice.
Health—specialist services
MRS KIKKERT: My question is to the Minister for Health. I refer to your answer to a question on notice regarding waiting times for children to see specialists in our
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