Page 2195 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 31 October 1989
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and that no such work will be contemplated in future unless the proper consultation processes have been completed and agreement reached?
MRS GRASSBY: Thank you, Mr Moore. The Government is firmly committed to full and open consultation. The views of the members of the Legislative Assembly, interested groups and affected people will be sought before the Government makes any final decision on either general ways of parking or specified matters, like parking in Reid or any other part of Canberra.
In relation to parking in residential areas, there has to be a balance between the rights of residents and the needs of the broader community, and this is what we will be looking at. The government strategy provides for adequate access for residents to be preserved and improved. However, the Government believes that refusal to allow any long-stay parking on residential streets is unrealistic or unfair to the community at large. It does believe, however, that people should not be subsidised to park in residential streets. Charging commuters for long-stay parking would remove any incentive for them to use these streets in preference to off-street parking areas available in the town centre.
A proposal in the Transport ACT booklet is to reduce the amount of commuter parking by about one-third and indeed increase amenities and availability of short-stay parking for residents. There will be no implementation of proposals until consultation has been completed. The pegging and marking of the kerbs in Reid, Braddon and Turner simply identify places where poles will not damage underground services. It does not prejudge what signs will ultimately appear on those poles.
Hospitals
MR COLLAERY: My question is directed to the Minister for Community Services and Health. I refer him to the intolerable situation at the Woden Valley Hospital, where several members of staff claim they have become the targets of assaults, abuse and threats from certain other members of staff, and to the claim that the hospital administration has failed and otherwise refused to conduct a proper inquiry into those allegations. I ask the Minister: does he intend to retain his previous position on this matter, as indicated through his staff to the HEF - namely, that the situation does not require intervention by him - or will he initiate an immediate inquiry so that these serious problems can be resolved quickly?
MR BERRY: My first reaction, I must say, Mr Speaker, to this question is to say that it has already been asked and answered.
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