Page 3776 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 2010
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If we want to talk about timing, I think it is fair to say that the Greens have been explicit about our concerns about late-night transport since we released a discussion paper in September 2009. We flagged this as a central issue when it comes to addressing the issues of alcohol-related violence and public safety.
I would also like to indicate that we wrote to Mr Corbell some months ago now, probably six or eight weeks ago, raising a number of questions about the detail of this bill. We received a response to those significant questions last Tuesday, and I will be clear that I appreciate the significance of the response we got, because there were some very detailed questions. But it became clear to us at that time that the government was not going to seriously address the issue of late-night transport as part of this reform process.
I then wrote to Mr Corbell last Friday indicating that we would not be in a position to debate the bill given the fact that the transport issue had not been addressed. Yes, Mr Corbell and I met yesterday to actually discuss that in detail. So I think it is important to be clear on the question of timing and exactly how we have got to this process. It has been a very long process. Unfortunately, it has come to a crunch point, because the bill is on for debate today, and we have had to be clear about the fact that we cannot support debate going forward on this bill in any good conscience, because the transport issue is not being addressed. Transport is central to addressing the twin issues of alcohol-related violence in the city and our very substantial problem of drink driving.
I do not want to abuse the indulgence of the Assembly in speaking too long, but I would like to quickly make a couple of other points. Mr Corbell has talked about me demanding a half-million-dollar allocation of money. The Greens have not specified a particular path, a particular amount of money. What we have said is that a solution has to be found, because we cannot in any good conscience move forward without resolving the issue of late-night transport. It has to be addressed. I have not specified on behalf of the Greens a particular amount of money. So it is important to clarify that point for the record.
Mr Corbell said the government is going to be providing a Nightrider service over the summer. That is a two-week service over summer. We saw just last Saturday that this is an issue every single weekend in this city. It is just not good enough to sit back and say, “We’re going to provide something for two weeks over Christmas and new year.” Undoubtedly, that is a particularly busy time, but anybody who has been out in Civic any time recently—we know Mr Corbell has—knows that this is an issue every single weekend.
What price are we willing to pay to allow our young people to continue to drink-drive because they cannot find any other way to get home at night? What price is it to stop these sorts of violent brawls that we saw in the city on Saturday night? How long are we going to have to wait to find a solution to these problems? We must bite the bullet now. We cannot simply put through a half-baked package of measures that say: “Oh, well, we’ll worry about transport later. We’ll come back to you on 1 December with some options for some kind of solution that we might implement somewhere down the track.” The Greens cannot in conscience move this legislation forward without knowing that we are going to seriously address this issue.
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