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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3036 ..

Ms Follett: What about the Nightrider service? It was cancelled.

MR WHITECROSS: Who put up the Nightrider experiment which Mr De Domenico cancelled at the first opportunity when he got into government? For the last 12 months Mr Humphries has been bleating about problems with people in Civic late at night, yet he cancelled the service which could have moved some of those people out of Civic back to where they live.

Mr De Domenico: It is cheaper to give them taxis, which is what we have done.

MR WHITECROSS: You did not give them taxis either, Mr De Domenico, so that is not much of an argument.

Mr De Domenico: Yes, we did. We gave them 15 more, and you were against that, too.

MR WHITECROSS: That is not much of an argument. You did not pay for the taxis. This is the problem with Mr De Domenico. He has done nothing to make ACTION more attractive to the customers. He has done nothing to make it more attractive for the consumers. He has reduced the service to make it hard to catch a bus, and he has put the fares up 50 per cent. He has not worked out a strategy for making it attractive to use buses.

We need quality public transport in the city, and Mr De Domenico is not providing it. Instead, he comes up with proposal after proposal to reduce the service. If the residents of Belconnen are a bit upset about this proposal and are bouncing up and down a bit about it, Mr De Domenico should not be surprised. They have all been reading the papers. They have been watching the news. They know what he has done in Weston Creek. They know what he has done in Tuggeranong. They know what he has done at the Causeway. They know what he did to the Nightrider service. They can see that they are next. If Mr De Domenico wants to demonstrate that he listens to the community, that he understands their concerns, that he is going to mend his ways, he ought to support this motion, because this motion is about saying, "We want to have a good quality public transport system, one which is going to be attractive for commuters to use, not one which gets smaller every day and more expensive every day", which is how ACTION is under Mr De Domenico.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MR BERRY (12:21): Mr Speaker, I am not closing the debate. I am just going to confine myself to the amendments which have been put before the chamber. The amendment moved by Mr De Domenico seeks to get the endorsement of this Assembly for his cuts. It is an amendment which must be opposed. It strikes out the words "are not cut from the abovementioned suburbs", which are the eight suburbs which feed the Kippax shopping centre. If we were to endorse that amendment, that would be an endorsement by this Assembly of a cut to the services which feed the Kippax centre from those suburbs. That must not be endorsed.

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