Page 820 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
we were against a 25-metre pool at the Gungahlin town centre. I am surprised they were not. He said that he backed us up. I will go back and check the votes from the Greens when we talked about this. At the town centres it should be a 50-metre pool. You can actually see a hierarchy of pools in areas where each of the town centres should have a 50-metre pool, but then there is no reason why you cannot have a network of smaller pools.
There might be a network of more 50-metre pools, but it is reasonable that you might have smaller pools to meet the local need. What is the local need in Lanyon? We know from the older people down there that they wanted a pool—in effect, a hydrotherapy pool—where they could go and exercise. We know, for instance, that the big facility that is going into Gordon will provide a lot of accommodation for older Canberrans in the Lanyon valley. They will need those services.
We know that there is an existing aged population in Lanyon. They were certainly telling me that they thought the idea of a pool was good situated one bus ride away from where they lived or perhaps a short walk if they were lucky enough to live in the area of the Lanyon shops.
We know from the families down there that they said they had trouble accessing swim classes or that they faced the inconvenience of getting the kids from school and then getting up to Erindale or getting up to Tuggeranong. If you are a single car family and you do not have access to that car, that means buses, which for most of them means it is impractical.
This is about delivering services. This is about a good government delivering good services to people where they live. Surely that is what we should be about. That is certainly not what this government is about and that is why this motion is important today. What it says is that it is time to get on with the job.
Mr Rattenbury says that he is shocked that we would ask for it to happen so quickly. I am not sure why he should be shocked. All we have asked for is a review of the community facilities. Surely, minister, your department has a database of community facilities in Lanyon. Surely, Ms Burch, the government knows what these facilities are and can collate them reasonably quickly and identify the deficiencies. One of those deficiencies for the people of Lanyon is an appropriate place to swim locally.
It was interesting to hear from Ms Burch. It always is. Of course, there was not much to say. If you really do look at what happened in Lanyon, the people of Lanyon said, “We have had enough.” In her speech when she was rattling off all the things that were supposedly good for the people of Lanyon, the only one in the area was an upgrade to the local centre in Banks.
We would welcome that. I am not sure what it means. She did not tell us what it meant. I wonder if she actually knows. Ms Burch was able to speak about anything but Lanyon; anything but Lanyon. I do doubt sometimes whether she knows her way down to the Lanyon valley.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video