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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (17 April) . . Page.. 1028 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

Mr De Domenico carried on yesterday about increasing passenger loading by implementing a new timetable. I suppose that, if you chop out 10 per cent of the services across the network, then you force more people onto fewer buses. But you may also force commuters out of the system altogether. ACTION's own commuter survey last year showed that ACTION users would prefer more frequent services, even if this meant longer journeys. What Mr De Domenico has done is offer ACTION commuters less frequent services. It is obvious that Mr De Domenico has not read the survey. So much for being out of touch with the needs and wants of commuters! It is Mr De Domenico who is out of touch.

Rather than explaining why he has cut 91 services in Tuggeranong, which will affect 5,000 weekly passenger journeys - that is 91 services and 5,000 passenger journeys affected each week in Tuggeranong, his own electorate - the rhetoric we have had to endure from Mr De Domenico about cutting services that no-one was using has proved to be false. He finished off his answer yesterday with the nonsense, which is repeated again and again, that it would be cheaper to send a taxi. It is cute rhetoric, Mr Speaker; but we all know that Mr De Domenico has no intention of sending out taxis. He contributes nothing to the debate with that nonsense rhetoric, and it is time that he forgot the rhetoric and started thinking about how he is going to provide a better bus service, not a worse one.

MR SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.

MR OSBORNE (4.10): I will speak very briefly, Mr Speaker, on the issue that Mr Whitecross just spoke about. I, too, have a lot of concerns. The one thing I would like to say is that you can look at bus figures and the number of people that use buses; but, unfortunately, in Tuggeranong, the majority of people who use those services cannot afford a car. I am a little bit disappointed that a lot of the needy people out there will be disadvantaged. I just hope that Mr De Domenico took that into consideration when he made this decision. But I basically agree with what Mr Whitecross has said.

MR BERRY (4.11): Mr Speaker, I rise to take up the issue of declining standards of honesty in this place. This goes back beyond the recent censure motion, where the Chief Minister was found to have misled this Assembly.

Members interjected.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Berry has the floor.

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