Page 2946 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 15 August 2018
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From 18 June 2018 to 12 August 2018, we asked you, the community, how we can best support Canberrans to use the proposed New Bus Network to travel to school, commute to work, attend community and sporting events and get around our growing city.
This language does not suggest a government that is open to hearing the frank and honest views of so many Canberrans; rather it implies that, as so many Canberrans suspect, these changes are already a foregone conclusion.
It is not only the ACT government website that has cast doubt on the genuine nature of this process. Many school principals from both public and independent schools have also questioned its validity and transparency. A Canberra Times article published on 8 August quoted numerous principals all of whom raised concerns about the lack of information and consultation offered to their schools. We have heard from public school principals who have told their school communities that they have been misled by this government. Independent school principals have had their requests for meetings refused until finally being agreed to late last week in the dying days of consultation, with meetings only to take place after the consultation period has already concluded.
As I said two weeks ago, one of the most damning parts of this consultation process is the fact that the government is yet to release timetables. Without timetable information, it is impossible for Canberrans to fully understand the impact of the new network on them and their families. Withholding necessary and vital information is not only insulting to the people of Canberra but also serves to discredit and delegitimise the consultation process in the first place. People who use the network are entitled to see the effects of the new timetable on their door-to-door travel times. Parents are entitled to see how long their children will be waiting at interchanges. The elderly are also entitled to see how long they will be required to wait at bus stops on a cold Canberra winter morning, waiting to catch the second or third leg of their journey.
Transport Canberra deputy director Mr Edgehill said during estimates only a few weeks ago:
There will be a much shorter, effectively, third phase of consultation after this consultation where we will be putting the timetable out and saying, “These are the actual bus times.”
Yet in all of the roadshows and all of the public meetings, we have heard nothing of this third phase of consultation. The government has said time and time again that this new network is more direct, accessible and frequent, yet it is yet to release any form of data or timetabling to support these claims. Let me be clear. I recognise that timetabling is a complicated beast, and I am not calling for timetabling consultation in order for individual arrival and departure times to be critiqued. Rather, Canberrans who rely on this network every day cannot give legitimate feedback on how this network will affect them without seeing the timetables.
The minister’s proposed amendments to my motion today are laughable, and the Canberra Liberals will not be supporting them. I will go through a couple of these
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