Page 2952 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 15 August 2018

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dedicated school buses will doubtless force more families to drive children to school, further making this busy car park a veritable minefield.

A parent from Fisher says:

I remember as an older teen … feeling uncomfortable on the bus when someone stared or started an inappropriate conversation. I remember getting up and moving seats. Yet primary schoolchildren, tweens and teens are expected to be allowed in these situations every day just to get to school.

The board of a school in the inner north states that the single biggest concern is over the ultimate safety and wellbeing of children which should override the government’s simple pursuit of efficiencies, and the underlying truth about the current push to remove direct school buses remains entangled with a number of other serious mistruths and inconsistencies surrounding Canberra traffic not being addressed by this government.

A parent from Amaroo asks:

How will the safety of the primary schoolchildren on a public bus be ensured? Will there be special stops at interchanges to let children off and on first?

The ACT Association of Parents and Friends has also raised major concerns about the safety of students in going about their core day-to-day journey of simply getting to and from school. This government are quick to say how important education is, but if they cannot be trusted to even get our children to and from school then I and the majority of Canberrans must seriously question whether they have their priorities right in the first place.

I must ask the minister: what really was the goal of this supposed improved network? After all the spin and rhetoric, we still do not know. Of course, this does not even begin to touch on the sham consultations this government has undertaken, which Miss Burch has spoken about in great detail today whilst the minister is not even fronting the thousands of Canberrans who are unhappy about these proposed network changes.

I thank Miss Burch for bringing this motion today to raise a significantly important issue that will impact thousands of Canberrans, particularly schoolchildren and their families, and I commend her motion to the Assembly.

Debate interrupted in accordance with standing order 74 and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for a later hour.

Sitting suspended from 12.34 to 2.30 pm.

Questions without notice

Taxation—reform

MR COE: My question is for the Chief Minister and Treasurer. I refer to claims by former senior treasury official Dr Khalid Ahmed in the media on 25 July. Dr Ahmed


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