Page 928 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 21 April 2021
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need to address to prove that they are here to genuinely serve the people of Canberra and not just their union mates.
Before I hear—and I can see the smirk coming already—the worn-out, tired, old rhetoric from Mr Steel saying that we evil Liberals are going to privatise everything, I would point out that only one party here in this Assembly has privatised any aspect of our public transport, and it is not us; it is ACT Labor, along with the Greens, with Capital Metro, or Canberra Metro.
In the transport space, my criticism is much more about ongoing policy direction rather than specific items of appropriation. Most of the spending lines are for nuts and bolts, practical items, about which there can be no argument. The budget statements outline a series of strategic objectives, and much of the spending here is simply to fulfil those objectives. As such, it is difficult for us as an opposition to pick apart the spending, line by line, as our disagreement with government is at a much wider policy direction level.
We will continue to hold the government to account in regard to targets and overall service delivery in the ACT because that is what Canberrans pay us to do. We, as a city, deserve much more than we are getting at present.
MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (10.33): The Greens understand the challenge that COVID-19 presented to the city, and we appreciate Transport Canberra and City Services and its hardworking staff for stepping up in so many areas. We are glad to see the first budget under the new parliamentary and governing agreement, which is setting us on the path towards building a better normal
The ACT Greens also believe strongly in public transport; we agree with Mr Parton on that. We believe that all transport in the ACT, including our freight, should be as environmentally sustainable as possible, and we really want to see a rapid transition to zero emission technologies.
We were pleased to see in our recent budget that we have progress on our Woden bus depot. We are glad that we are moving towards a 100 per cent zero emissions bus fleet by 2040, and we would be open to an earlier target, if that is in line with technology and other factors. We know that other jurisdictions have set 2030 targets for their zero emissions bus fleets, so it is certainly something to look into.
We are also hoping for a 100 per cent zero emissions fleet in other government operations, like electric garbage trucks. These are now in use in the City of Fremantle, Yarra City Council and Adelaide. We have a kerbside collection contract coming up for renewal in 2023, so it is a good time to be looking at that and factoring that in. We have found that zero emissions vehicles are a great financial investment as well as an environmental one. They may cost more up front, but they bring big savings over their life because we do not have to pay for petrol or diesel.
We are glad that our bus fleet will soon be 100 per cent disability compliant. We would like to see an increase in on-time running and reliability, and we would like to
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