Page 864 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 6 April 2022
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advice. I think it reaches a point where perhaps the public of the ACT are not being served well by having such a dogmatic response.
It takes 694 drivers, from our reckoning, based on answers that we have received in hearings, to operate the full school term timetable from Monday to Friday. We were able to achieve that in May 2021, when we had a total of 908 drivers—128 casual, 509 full time and 271 part time. That was in May 2021. But we were not able to achieve that in February this year when we had a total of 957 drivers. That is 40 more than the May 2021 figure—139 casual, which is 10 more, 556 full time, which is 45 more, and 262 part time, which is six less.
Even Ms Clay in her response indicated that the suggestion she is getting from the directorate is that much of the leave pressure is not actually COVID leave; it is other leave. To be honest, it says more about the way that the minister handles this part of the directorate than anything else. When we look at the COVID leave that was taken in February this year, the most COVID leave days that were taken in a week was 104. If these were all full-time staff, this would be about 26 drivers isolating, and even if this was all part-time staff working three days a week, this would be about 35 drivers isolating. Both are less than the additional 47 full-time drivers that would have been hired for February, when compared to last May, when we had the full timetable.
I am not sure that the minister’s insistence that it is not possible for us to return to a full timetable because of COVID stacks up. I am really not sure.
I would like to quote an anonymous Greens elected member on this particular motion, who stood in the chamber somewhere in Australia this week and said:
Why do these things matter? We are in a climate emergency; we are running up against the natural limits of our environment. We cannot keep doing things the way we have done them in the past.
Another IPCC report came out yesterday. The UN Secretary General has blasted politicians in the wake of this grave climate crisis. He is calling current government actions empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unliveable world.
These are the words of Jo Clay from this chamber yesterday. Ms Clay went on to say:
He said that some government and business leaders are saying one thing but doing another. Simply put, they are lying. Those are not my words; those are from the UN Secretary General on the IPCC report.
Ms Clay went on to say:
I certainly do not want to be one of those politicians making empty pledges or saying one thing and doing another. We need real climate action …
Again, I would point Ms Clay to the patronage numbers that have come through from Tasmania. I understand that perhaps it was a bit of a stretch to suggest that, with the additional 4,300 passengers, that equates to 4,300 cars off the road; nevertheless, it
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