Page 196 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 6 March 2007
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I am a little surprised that Mrs Dunne would even suggest such a thing, because she would know, I would hope, because I have a lot of faith in her research capabilities, that to change a network is not something you can do overnight. You cannot just flick a switch, turn a light on and instantly be back to the way we did it before.
Mrs Dunne: Gee, that is what the TWU told me at lunchtime.
MR HARGREAVES: Mrs Dunne can natter away like a little old lady at a christening if she want to, but it will not make the slightest bit of difference to me. The fact is that it takes a lot of work to change a network. She does not listen, because I have said publicly and I have said in here—I will go through part of it again—that we have reverted to some of the old routes. Some of them have gone back—14 of them, if my memory serves me correctly; I have only just said it.
Mrs Dunne would have us revert to the old network. Do you know what that would mean, Mr Speaker? It would mean no service to the eye hospital, no service to Harrison. We would then reduce the number of services on the peak routes and upset all of the people commuting. That would mean, of course, that we would end up with more cars on the road. Of course, the environmental champion over there would be personally responsible for all those extra cars on the roads. We would not have extra services to the cemeteries or to the hospitals. That is what would happen if we reverted directly to the old system.
Furthermore, we have discovered in the course of things that on quite a number of bus routes that had a very low patronage the change has not made a lot of difference. The people on those buses have actually adapted to the change and are quite happy about it. Some people are not.
Mr Pratt: An old lady taking seven hours to get to the hospital—that is adapting.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Pratt!
Mr Pratt: That is the sort of feedback we are getting, John.
MR SPEAKER: Order! This is not a conversation.
Mr Pratt: That is the feedback we are getting.
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Pratt natters away under his beard, but he does not listen. Mr Speaker, I have said that there are some routes which will require amendment, and we are addressing those. We are also going to have a conversation with those people who are not taking the buses, because they are just as important—probably more important in a way—as we would like to provide those services to them to get them out of their cars.
As I said publicly last night, one thing that we have not done particularly well and we have never done well since we took over ACTION, I have to say—and that goes for a former minister for bus services, Mr Smyth, the man who would spend most of his time attacking other people, instead of getting his facts right—is that we have not
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