Page 2555 - Week 09 - Thursday, 16 September 2021

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end, the government has committed to a program of works benefiting sports in the ACT over the next four years. Funding has been allocated to irrigation upgrades at Amaroo and cricket facilities at Taylor and a new football facility at Throsby.

In relation to the request for the installation of a water bubbler at Bonner Oval, I am pleased to report that the installation of a bubbler is scheduled. The timing of this installation will be contingent on the impacts of the current COVID-19 lockdown on resources and materials. The bubbler will complement existing facilities including the recent installation of LED sportsground lighting. The petitioners’ call for prioritisation of other facilities at Bonner has been noted and TCCS Sport and Recreation Facilities will continue to work with sporting communities and peak bodies to identify priorities for further upgrades.

Thank you for raising this matter. I trust this information is of assistance.

Motion to take note of petitions

MADAM SPEAKER: Pursuant to standing order 98A, I propose the question:

That the petitions and responses so lodged be noted.

Public housing—maintenance—petition 37-21

MR PARTON (Brindabella) (10.06): I seek leave to table an out-of-order petition which is an electronic version of the maintenance of public housing petition. It secured 271 signatures, to make the total almost 300.

Leave granted.

MR PARTON: I table the following out-of-order petition:

Petition which does not conform with the standing orders—Public housing—Maintenance.

There were some people who asked me: “Are you even going to speak to these petitions? Surely they have lost some currency in the height of this COVID crisis?” I told them that these petitions are even more important in the height of this pandemic because they highlight the gap between the haves and the have-nots—a gap that is ever present here in Canberra. But thanks to the COVID crisis—and, some are suggesting, thanks in part to the way that it has been dealt with in this jurisdiction—that gap is widening every day.

Being confined to your home for months seems pretty cruisy if you are living on an MLA wage; if you are in a public housing residence that is falling down around you, and, try as you might, you cannot get the most basic maintenance problems dealt with, it is an ongoing nightmare—an absolute nightmare. The ongoing public maintenance debacle has affected many tenants who have been plunged into lockdown, not the


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