Page 2498 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 14 November 1989
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MR STEFANIAK (4.39): I would like to support the comments of my colleague Mrs Nolan and also Mr Wood, and commend this Bill. I think it is a bit unfortunate that the Minister responsible for the Bill did not join me on a very enjoyable cycle ride along about 50 kilometres of our cycle paths several Sundays ago when it was Bicycle Week.
Mrs Grassby: I could not, Bill. I thought you would have move-on powers.
MR STEFANIAK: Well, we were all moving pretty quickly, Ellnor, so I do not think that was really necessary. But certainly it enabled me to travel along quite a lot of our very good cycle paths and experience not only the volume of cyclists who used them on that most pleasant Sunday but also other people, families out for a stroll and several joggers. I am also very grateful to Mrs Nolan for coming to pick me up at Pine Island at the end of our first leg and take me to the top of the hill so that I did not have to ride up the hill all the way through Tuggeranong. This allowed me to ride back downhill along the cycle paths to Civic. Certainly they are very much recreation paths, and indeed I bumped into a few people I knew, including an old Pole at Yarralumla who directed me to a municipal problem.
Mrs Grassby: My goodness; are the poles talking to you now, Bill?
MR STEFANIAK: No, no; it was a live one, Ellnor, an old family friend, who certainly could not be described as a jogger because he is an elderly gentleman and he was just taking a stroll. He drew my attention to some sewerage and twigs that had banked up near the Yarralumla oval, near the path, and I duly passed that on to the Minister's private secretary. I hope that has been attended to. In fact, I may take a ride out to Yarralumla and check on that shortly. But they are a wonderful form of recreation, not just for cyclists, but for joggers, for families, for people out for a stroll, and I wholeheartedly support this legislation, as does my party.
MR JENSEN (4.41): Mr Speaker, I think that it is very important to identify the difference between the true commuter cyclists and the recreational cyclists who seek to use our bicycle paths. My discussions with organisations like Pedal Power have clearly shown that there is a major difference between the two. Those who wish to move quickly between the town centres using an alternative to the motor vehicle have some difficulty in using the existing bike paths that we have around the ACT.
However, what worries me is that there seems to be a suggestion that the existing facilities that we have are appropriate for the fast commuter cyclists in their attempts to get out of their motor cars and move between the major centres. As the question I asked the Minister this afternoon stated, there are also people who wish to travel from the suburban areas to major bus centres, put
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