Page 3826 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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MR CONNOLLY: They change from time to time. It is hard to keep up with. The information was given very clearly to the Estimates Committee. There is no ability for this Government or any government, unless it were to breach that agreement or get out of that agreement, to have an only-buy-local policy. All the best economic advice is that we do better with that no-preference agreement.
Bus Shelters
MR DUBY: My question is addressed to Mr Connolly as Minister for Urban Services. Will the Minister give an undertaking that no more wooden heritage-type bus shelters will be demolished in the inner areas of Canberra?
MR CONNOLLY: I can certainly give that undertaking where it is open to us to preserve them. ACTION has done a very thorough investigation of those heritage bus shelters, and you are absolutely right in saying that they are an important part of the inner urban environment. Some of them have been in an extraordinarily dilapidated state of repair. Some of them have been white ant infested and the like, so it is not possible to keep them.
ACTION does have a standing policy that, wherever possible, they will be retained. Perhaps what I could do is give an undertaking that, if it is decided by ACTION that it is not possible to preserve a shelter, that fact will be widely publicised. It may well be that community groups or even the historical societies might want to get involved and help save it. I can give an undertaking that we will not demolish any without full public notice, but I cannot say that we will always keep them. It gets to a point with some of them where it may not be worth the cost of full restoration. Wherever possible, we will do so.
MR DUBY: I have a supplementary question. I am amazed that the Minister can say that it may be possible for community groups and conservation groups to protect and save these premises when theoretically it is not economically possible for ACTION to do so. I find that a remarkable answer. The simple fact is that these are parts of our heritage and the Minister should be able to give an undertaking that he will not allow any more to be demolished.
MR CONNOLLY: An item may be so badly damaged that it is not possible to fix it without spending vast quantities of money. I have to balance whether I can provide a service to the people of Gordon or Conder or the new suburbs in the extremities of Tuggeranong, who now do not have access to public transport but who will from 1 January have access to public transport, or spend vastly increasing amounts of money on, say, restoring a bus shelter that is in a hopeless state of repair.
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