Page 3391 - Week 09 - Thursday, 24 August 2017
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territory unleased land. This is an area where obviously there is a very high and unmet demand for facilities. There are two communities in my electorate both looking for increased playground expenditure, and I am sure there are many more throughout Canberra. I believe we currently have about 500 playgrounds, and we are not in a position to adequately maintain them. This is an area where we need a better solution. Public toilets: I was in Downer when the one and only public toilet in Downer was closed. Local shop upgrades: there is a huge demand for those. Some of our local shops are looking pretty tacky.
I do not know exactly what the solution is, but I will put forward two ideas because I think it is a multipronged solution. The first solution is the one I put forward yesterday: participatory budgeting. Minister Fitzharris is nodding that TCCS expenditure was one of the areas identified as probably an easy place to start. There is clearly a lot of community interest in it; there is clearly demand for vastly more than the ACT government is currently providing, and I think vastly more than anybody would reasonably expect the ACT government to provide. We are not all going to have Chifley-level playgrounds in our suburbs. As nice as that may be, it is very much gold plating. We have to make some hard decisions about priorities in this budget area because the demands are very great.
The big advantage of participatory budgeting is that the community has to make some of these hard decisions. When we are lobbied by community members they all assure us that their particular thing is absolutely brilliant, is absolutely what is needed and will absolutely be great for their suburb. Of course they are 100 per cent correct in that. The problem the government has is that there are lot of things that it would be absolutely brilliant to do that would be great additions to the city. If our rates are to stay in any way manageable, not all those things are going to happen. I am very pleased that yesterday there was tripartisan support for this as being one of possibly many ways we can look at better allocating our money to the Transport Canberra and City Services budget.
Something else that may be part of the solution is more encouragement of local communities where they want to do something positive that will not cost the government money. The government gets concerned about potential risk issues. Currently TCCS is seen in many instances as a blocker. I give the specific example of the Fox and Bow, the cafe in Farrer which both you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and I have visited. It came to fame in the Canberra Times because the owners put up a basketball hoop opposite the cafe. If you were going more than 10 kph on the road it is on the side of you would be driving dangerously; there are two distinct 90-degree turns. But TCCS rangers said it was dangerous because it was next to a road, and the hoop has been removed. That is an unfortunate result. A speed hump and a sign saying “Kids playing slow down” would have been a better solution, but I use that as an example.
I am aware of a number of instances where community members have successfully done things in their local communities without bothering to consult the government on the grounds that they figured it was a low-risk, safe activity and it would be the best thing to do. I am aware of a few little book libraries dotted around the suburbs that people have put up. They are great additions to our community, and we need to have some processes that make it easier for community members to do things without
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