Page 3398 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007
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horror budget of 2006. Intertown routes were slashed and suburban routes were obliterated, leaving bus drivers and passengers exasperated.
Let’s not get too precious, Chief Minister, when you complain loud and hard that the opposition does not support your new capital initiatives. Of course, we have to support most of those. In addition to proposing tax cuts, we give high priority to government programs. We do give high priority to government programs, but we are highly critical that your so-called $75 million for the public transport system is simply playing catch-up with neglected programs or repairing damage to programs inflicted by your government and your reckless ministers two years ago.
Let me give another example of that: CCTV. Yesterday another $207,000-odd was announced for CCTV initiatives in bus interchanges. That is only on the back of systemic neglect. In May 2007, Mr Hargreaves made all the right noises about making our buses and our interchanges safer. He even promised action by July 2007. He was genuinely concerned about the insecurity in our bus interchanges in May. He said, “Oh, look, Mr Pratt, I am going to move on this by July. We will start getting CCTVs into those interchanges and we will upgrade our staffing levels to make our staff in those places safer after last light.” That was all talk and bluster, wasn’t it? We had an announcement yesterday that maybe there will be a CCTV program. When will we see that? With the way this government moves, at a snail’s pace, even on the most critical duty of care issues, it will be some time.
That is the difference between us and this government. Where we talk about tabling a repeal bill to give some money back to people, the government cannot. Why? Because they are stuck with their albatrosses and they are listed from here to eternity.
Another example of government neglect which will rob their opportunity to hand back taxes is the fleet replacement—this well heralded announcement yesterday: 100 buses over four years, 25 buses a year. The problem with that is that we are simply catching up. The bus replacement program has been about 20 per cent behind for four years. The announcement of the new CNG buses is simply catch-up. The windfall that we have seen in the last quarter or more is now being squandered to play catch-up, to plug gaps. The bus replacement program is another example. This announcement yesterday was not value adding. There might be a 10 per cent capacity uptake, but you would hope—
Mr Mulcahy: Maybe.
MR PRATT: Yes, I think you are right, Mr Mulcahy: maybe. In your dreams, Chief Minister—in your dreams. You said that this would increase our fleet by about 10 per cent. You will not be, because you have so much neglect to address. No wonder you cannot return taxes to the people; you are forever playing catch-up.
The fact is that the government is playing catch-up and there is no excuse for writing off any initiatives for cutting tax. That is why we have this repeal bill here today. We will at least demonstrate that we know how to deliver tax cuts back to people but sensibly maintain government programs. We will never dig the hole that this government has dug itself into in the last six years. You have let services run down.
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