Page 2459 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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Canberra is renowned for its attractive streetscapes but the drought has played havoc with our trees. Over 1,000 of them across the city have been either damaged or destroyed by the effects of the drought and, as a result, more than $1.5 million will be spent over three years to maintain young trees and remove hazardous and dead ones. Over 2,300 dead or drought-affected trees are to be removed from within the urban area alone. New trees will also be planted in suburban streets, laneways and parks. Of course, we will be watering developing trees using non-potable water, to help to ensure their survival during drought conditions.
The government’s focus on maintaining and improving our fantastic parks, playgrounds and public open spaces is demonstrated by increased maintenance funding of $5 million over four years. In addition, $2.2 million is allocated to upgrade local and district parks across the territory, at Yerrabi Pond, John Knight park, Glebe park, Lennox Gardens, Edison park, Fadden Pines and Point Hut Pond park. Playgrounds will be improved in Belconnen, the inner north, Oaks Estate, Woden and Tuggeranong. New fitness trails will be developed at Edison park and John Knight park and a flying fox will be erected at John Knight park. That is a lot of investment in the social infrastructure of this town.
Our commitment to car parks, which these wailers keep going on about, can be seen in the $1.5 million we have allocated for construction at Woden, and a temporary car park is being established at Acton at a cost of $2½ million. Two new dog exercise enclosures are to be constructed in north and south Canberra, with fully fenced facilities and seating and with short exercise courses for pets. These measures add to our reputation as one of the best-kept places in Australia.
I turn now to public transport. Let me remind members opposite of this government’s $8 million investment in this year’s budget in improving public transport, with over $6 million in capital funding and $2 million in recurrent funding to increase security, enhance the network and improve the quality of the ACTION fleet. This is additional money, over and above the normal replacement program. I do not hear any recognition from those opposite of the fact that this is costing us over $1 million a week. There is no recognition from those opposite of the fact that we have incredible patronage of the inner town routes and next to nothing in the early morning and early afternoon routes in the suburbs. Out of 88 routes tested on a Saturday morning between seven and eight in the morning, 77 of them had no passengers on them at all. Do I hear any suggestions from those opposite as to how to address that? Short answer: no. They just say, “Throw more money at it; do more things.” (Second speaking period taken.)
MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Gentleman): I remind members that it is almost 5.00 pm and we still have 13 output classes to go.
MR HARGREAVES: I do not hear any suggestions from these people about how to fix this. They do not recognise that we have undertaken a massive consultation process with the community. We are putting on enormous numbers of extra buses, at $500,000 each. We have also done new computer modelling. And that is still not good enough for those opposite.
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