Page 633 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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The Commonwealth has recently allocated additional money to programs in the ACT. That comprises $215,000 for improvements on the Yarra Glen-Melrose Drive roundabout. That is the big roundabout at Woden. We estimate that this will reduce the number of accidents on that roundabout by something like 30 a year, with a cost saving of some $96,000 a year recurrent to the ACT community. We are also looking at alterations to existing traffic signals, plus an extension to the right-hand turning lane at the Hindmarsh Drive-Tuggeranong Parkway northbound ramp intersection, at a cost of $110,000. That, we estimate, will reduce accidents by five a year, with a saving to the community of some $32,000 a year. We are looking at providing a roundabout at the Jerrabomberra Avenue-Goyder Street intersection, by the Narrabundah College oval, at a cost of $175,000, with a consequent reduction of accidents by approximately eight, and an expected cost saving to the community of some $41,000.
Those cost savings to the community really relate to property damage. When you look at injury it is, of course, much more important. There are three major projects; half a million dollars of additional Commonwealth money to the ACT. My only regret is that this decision, as it has worked its way through the bureaucratic system, came too late to announce before 13 March. I am sure that, had we been able to announce this before 13 March, the majorities of Mrs Kelly and Mr Langmore would have increased even further than they did.
Freedom of Information Fees
MR MOORE: My question is directed to Mr Wood as Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning. Why has your department decided not to remit the application fee for a freedom of information request from the community group, Conservation Council of the South-East Region, with reference to section 22, blocks 6, 7, 8 and 9, Braddon?
MR WOOD: There is a fee that applies. People who seek freedom of information data submit an application fee along with it, and that applies. Madam Speaker, Mr Moore wrote to me about it, seeking a remission of it, but I am not sure that there was sufficient reason attached to the letter to induce the department or me to do so. That is not to deny the fact that the Conservation Council and the various bodies attached to it are nothing but very fine. They do a good job for the people of the ACT. They are a body that I meet with on a very regular basis, and to which I attend most closely. Nevertheless, I have yet to be convinced - put it that way - that they should get a particular advantage over other people or groups in the community by our waiving this fee, when those other people and groups have to pay the fee.
Seniors Week
MR KAINE: I would like to address another question to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, yesterday - I think it was only yesterday - in opening Seniors Week, you paid lip-service to the concept of assisting the older people in our community. Will you undertake to assist our older citizens to gain information and to have access to the range of government services that are available to them by providing in the Government's shopfronts officers specialising in the needs of the ageing?
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