Page 4018 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 20 September 2017
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(a) each year the ACT Government mows 30 000 hectares of grass across our suburbs and along arterial roads, maintains around 2 500 kilometres of footpaths, resurfaces more than a million square metres of road, and makes over 6.8 million household rubbish collections and 3.5 million household recycling collections;
(b) the ACT Government is delivering on its commitment to improve the look and feel of our city through practical municipal improvements across Canberra;
(c) the 2017-18 Budget invests in better road maintenance, safety in school zones, better playground and sporting facilities, better weed control and better graffiti management;
(d) the ACT grew faster than any State or Territory over the past five years, adding more than 40 000 new residents—an increase of 11 percent;
(e) our rapid population growth creates more demand for services which means that the level and focus of city services needs to change too;
(f) the ACT Government provided more than $2.3 million this year for city services in our new suburbs, covering the maintenance of roads, paths and parkland, as well as essential services such as waste and recycling collections;
(g) the Minister for Transport and City Services yesterday launched the Better Suburbs program. This program involves extensive community engagement to develop a Better Suburbs Statement that will outline the vision and priorities for the delivery of city services in the future; and
(h) the ACT Government has committed to a participatory budgeting pilot in the 2018-2019 budget cycle that will give a representative cross-section of the Canberra community an opportunity to consider and make clear recommendations on how a discretionary portion of the City Services budget could be allocated to best reflect community priorities; and
(2) calls on the ACT Government to:
(a) continue to invest in better city services to support the growth of new suburbs and the renewal of established suburbs across Canberra;
(b) engage across the whole Canberra community to better understand their needs and how they prioritise city services, including domestic animals, parks and public amenity, sporting and recreational facilities, shopping precincts, trees and shrubs, roads, waste management, traffic management, street lighting, storm water infrastructure, footpaths and cycle paths;
(c) ensure that decisions about city services are informed by local residents and ratepayers to achieve the appropriate balance in services and infrastructure that meet changing needs and are financially sustainable; and
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