Page 2995 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 15 September 2015

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MR HANSON: Minister, do you feel that the bidding process for light rail has now been compromised?

MR CORBELL: Apart from it probably asking for an expression of opinion, I will nevertheless take the question, and the answer is no.

Cabinet—meetings

MS FITZHARRIS: My question is to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, can you update the Assembly on the ACT government’s recent pop-up cabinet in Woden?

MR BARR: I thank Ms Fitzharris for the question. Indeed, it was a great pleasure for cabinet members to be able to hold a couple of days of meetings and events in the Woden town centre, in the Phillip business district and in areas around Woden, Weston Creek and Molonglo earlier this month. Cabinet hosted a business forum and a community services roundtable, visited a local school, toured the hospital and met with local residents in a series of one-on-one meetings. We also had a stand at Westfield Woden and had the opportunity to engage with members of the community throughout the few days we were popping up in Woden.

We discussed a range of issues including the future of higher education provision in Woden, infrastructure upgrades, health care, investing in the town centre precinct, child protection issues, and community facility and community service issues. We met with business owners in Westfield and we also visited a number of businesses in the Phillip services district, which was kindly facilitated by Robert Issell from the Phillip business community. It was a little wet on the Thursday morning but we did undertake a walking tour of the Phillip business district and had the opportunity to meet a number of small business owners in the precinct.

We are committed to supporting our local businesses in town centres and local shopping centres, and the business forum the government held was an excellent way to learn more about the issues in the Woden-Phillip service area in particular. We look forward to being able to resolve a number of the specific issues that were raised with government.

Similarly the community services roundtable helped open a strong dialogue between the government and community service providers in the Woden, Weston Creek, Molonglo region. We are committed to continuing to provide support for community sector organisations.

So it was an informative and interesting few days in Woden, and the response from the community was, indeed, very positive. It was a great pleasure to be able to discuss a range of important issues about the future of the Woden town centre in particular. We look forward to continuing this method of community engagement in other parts of Canberra in the months ahead.

MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Ms Fitzharris.


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