Page 2108 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2018
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few complaints from constituents about street sweeping. It seems to come as a surprise to the government every autumn that the leaves are going to fall off the trees and settle on the ground, in the gutters, on the street and, indeed, on the footpaths.
I think the Attorney-General mentioned the courts project earlier. He said that because of winter there was a delay. Again, that is perhaps no surprise. We all probably know that winter is coming—
Mr Parton: Middle of the year.
MS LAWDER: Indeed! In fact, it is already here. It has been for the past few days. That should not be a surprise to any of us. Autumn comes and winter comes. In fact, the Americans call autumn “fall” for that very reason—because the leaves are going to fall to the ground.
Mr Parton: They’re on to it.
MS LAWDER: They do appear to be on to it. What surprises me is that every year at around this time our inboxes get clogged with emails from people complaining about the street sweeping. In some areas, as Ms Lee has already commented, it is vastly exacerbated because of the types of trees that are planted in those suburbs. It is also worth noting that those particular suburbs, mostly in Kurrajong, where many of the deciduous trees were planted before a different regime came in and we started planting different types of trees, would be the most visited by tourists and visitors to our city.
They see the mess that is created in our streets by the leaves that fall to the ground and then are left there. It does not sound like a lot to ask for additional street sweeping. But it can have a considerable impact and it can make a considerable difference to people’s pride in their communities, their willingness to contribute their own effort to keeping everything looking good, and the way that we view our communities and that other people visiting us view us as well.
Just last week I was down at Lake Tuggeranong, as I often am. There is a pedestrian crossing that goes from the South.Point main shopping centre—it is near the gazebo area, the town square area, the laneway area—through to the lake. Just last night at Tuggeranong Community Council people from the directorate were talking about potential works in that particular area. Most residents are enormously appreciative of, and looking forward to, those changes.
But the point was raised about deciduous trees, as it has been every time there is discussion about the trees down Anketell Street and down the laneway precinct. When I was there just last week there were rafts of leaves lying around against the edges of buildings and in the gutters because of the deciduous trees there right on the edge of the lake. Where are those leaves going to end up? They will blow either directly into the lake, into the water, or be washed down through the stormwater system, also into the lake.
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