Page 2663 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 1994
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Thursday, 25 August 1994
________________________
MADAM SPEAKER (Ms McRae) took the chair at 10.30 am and read the prayer.
PETITION
The Clerk: The following petition has been lodged for presentation:
By Mr Cornwell, from 362 residents, requesting that the Assembly abandon the proposal to convert existing car parks near the Parliamentary Triangle into paid parking facilities.
The terms of this petition will be recorded in Hansard and a copy referred to the appropriate Minister.
Car Parking near Parliamentary Triangle
The petition read as follows:
To the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory:
The Petition of certain residents of the ACT draws to the attention of the Assembly that the proposed conversion of existing, purpose-built, worker car-parks, adjacent to Commonwealth buildings near the Parliamentary Triangle, into paid-parking facilities is an inequitable, unjust tax.
It is inequitable in that the car-parks were installed as a necessary worker facility and are not in demand for any other purpose (as are parking spaces in city or town centres). The tax is also inequitable in that it singles out only one class of citizen for, what amounts to, a wage reduction - non-SES, government workers.
The tax is unjust in that it impacts most heavily on the more lowly-paid workers (for an ASO2 it represents a wage reduction of 8.27%) and workers from less-affluent outer areas from where bus travel is impractical. The proposal is especially unjust in that it would impact very heavily on struggling, married staff from outer areas who have to deliver children to, and collect them from, child-care on their way to and from work. In addition, the affected staff work in Commonwealth
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