Page 838 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 18 March 2015
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MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion, as amended, be agreed to.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo—Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Justice, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister assisting the Chief Minister on Transport Reform) (3.42), by leave: I wish to add some information on ACTION services which I did not have in time for this morning’s debate. I will keep it brief, in the spirit of being granted additional leave. This morning I spoke about ACTION fares. Mr Doszpot cited a number of letters that I had written in the previous term about ACTION matters on behalf of Oaks Estate and I did want to provide an update on information.
I spoke this morning about the flexible bus service that was made available to Oaks Estate residents in order to provide additional services and I can inform the Assembly that this is made available to Oaks Estate residents at ACTION cost. So that is a service that is supported by the ACT government that has come about since I wrote those letters during the last term.
Another key matter cited in the letters that I wrote on behalf of Oaks Estate residents was the disparity of fares. It was a very significant fare, I believe up to $14, for somebody to come from Oaks Estate into the ACT, but now any resident of Oaks Estate can buy a low cost, one-way ticket to Woden or Civic from Queanbeyan, travel via Qcity Transit and then transfer to an ACTION bus if necessary all on the one ticket. This is the Oaks Estate special one-way cash fare and is the result of an arrangement made between the ACT government and Qcity Transit.
This fare is only available to people of Oaks Estate. I note that it is a $2.50 cash fare, which is cheaper than the ACTION cash fare at $4.50 and even cheaper still if one uses a MyWay card on an ACTION bus. In light of those issues that Mr Doszpot noted that I had raised in my letter, there has been action on both of those points and that has certainly improved the situation for residents of Oaks Estate.
MR DOSZPOT (Molonglo) (3.44): Words cannot reflect accurately my anger and absolute disdain at what this government and its Greens sycophant supporter continue to do in this place. Once again the government scribes furiously rewrote another opposition motion to make sure they on the government benches do not actually commit to anything, do not stand for anything, do not have to do anything and make sure no words of criticism pass their eyes.
Mr Gentleman could not help himself. He even had to delete one of the noting items that we had, point (d):
… that despite all these attempts at community engagement and government interest, Oaks Estate was described in the 2006 census as one of two most disadvantaged suburbs in Canberra …
That is not a political statement. It is not something we have dreamt up that we should put in there. It is a factual statement that comes out of a census report. But even that is
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