Page 1283 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 11 April 2018
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(c) the majority of school students who catch buses (around 60%) use the general network to travel to and from school, rather than specific school bus services; and
(d) school services are also designed to get students to school close to bell times, which is often when there is the most congestion on roads and around schools due to parents dropping students off;
(3) further notes that:
(a) the ACT Government undertook the first stage of consultation on a new bus network late last year; and
(b) the second stage of community consultation will be undertaken in the coming months and will include how school services are delivered; and
(4) calls on the Minister for Transport and City Services to report to the Assembly by Thursday, 23 August 2018 on:
(a) plans for the new bus network and feedback from the second stage of the community consultation;
(b) current on-time running, and steps to be taken to improve on-time running in the new network; and
(c) current performance of school services in meeting school start and finish times and steps to be taken to improve school service performance in the new network.”.
That again goes to the government’s commitment to provide a frequent and reliable public transport network for all Canberrans.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (3.58): I thank Miss C Burch and Minister Fitzharris for the debate on this really important issue. Transport in general is actually a core government service. Public transport is part of that. I also very much welcome the Canberra Liberals’ support for public transport which, I have to say, unfortunately has not always been so fulsome in the past, but I very much appreciate that.
I am a regular bus user. I came to work on the bus today. I will go home on it. Thus I do appreciate the importance of punctuality. I will be supporting the government’s amendment. It does include reporting to the Assembly, as Miss Burch wanted, but the timing has been changed to fit in better with the consultation that the government is currently doing on the second stage of the new bus network.
I wish we had had this motion yesterday. I could have not used up one of my questions to the minister, because it has been rather confusing as to what is going on, given that the your say website said that the consultation was going to be early this year and the new timetable would start from the middle of this year. I am also aware of quite a number of community councils that had presentations scheduled by the department for March, and they were all cancelled at very late notice. That is not good. I am glad to see that the government’s amendment will have more reporting than Miss Burch’s original motion.
Looking at school services, I do appreciate Minister Fitzharris’s point that it actually is very difficult to schedule school services given that at the morning peak the
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