Page 3433 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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Mr Smyth and Mr Seselja have talked about the complex journeys that people make in the course of going about their business. That is particularly the case with parents of children in school, after-school care and other care. While I was listening to the earlier part of this debate, Mr Seselja was talking about complex journeys, and one of my staff was on the phone to her husband who was stuck in traffic and could not get to the childcare centre in time to pick up the children from childcare and he was talking about what that meant for him, her, the children and the childcare providers. It is not just women; men also take on these responsibilities. Families have complex journeys. Whether we like it or not and whether we would prefer it to be otherwise, most families in the ACT are condemned to two cars because of the chaotic public transport arrangements.
If we had better public transport arrangements, some people would willingly give up their cars. My husband, for instance, would prefer not to drive to work. He would prefer not to run his car, not to pay for parking and he would prefer to have the three-quarters of an hour or so to read, do the crossword or whatever. I think there are a lot of people like that, but not everybody has the convenience of being able to catch one bus from the end of the street to their work in a reasonable time. Most people make complex journeys. There are many times when my husband has to drive to work because he also makes complex journeys to keep our family running.
This is repeated over and over again, and that is why Mr Coe has put forward a motion about the importance of having a strategic approach to parking and that we ensure that there is appropriate parking. When this government provides appropriate public transport that gives people an option, that is when you start cutting back on parking.
Simon Corbell has been a minister in this place for a long time, and one of his principal aims has been to cut back on parking. He is an unashamed cutter-back of parking as a means of forcing people onto public transport. You do not force people onto public transport; you create a public transport system that people will want to use.
When you have a public transport system that people want to use, parking will be less of an issue. Until we reach that time, we have to do the work that Mr Coe has called for in his motion. That is why I support Mr Coe’s motion. I congratulate him on behalf of the families of the ACT for standing up for those families and for constituents across this town who approach us on a regular basis with their frustrations about parking. Thank you, Mr Coe. I commend Mr Coe’s motion to the Assembly.
MR DOSZPOT (Brindabella) (6.09): I also commend Mr Coe for his motion. A lot has been said about various issues with parking in various areas. I would like to bring a couple of matters to the Assembly’s attention in supporting Mr Coe’s motion as to why this is such an urgent issue.
Calwell, which is my home suburb, has a very busy shopping centre where parking has been an issue for quite a number of years. In fact, I recall taking a petition to Mr Hargreaves when he was the minister responsible in 2004 before I was elected to
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