Page 3460 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 22 August 2018
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Lighting is an issue that I have talked about frequently in this place. Just recently, there was an issue at the side of Erindale where the PCYC is. I am never sure which side people think is the back and which is the front. I think the area where the PCYC is located is at the back, but some people call that the front. On that side there was a big light out for a few months, which has recently been fixed. Out the other side of Erindale, on the McBryde Crescent side of Erindale, there is another light out in the car park, which I noticed just this week.
These are the types of basic local services that people expect to be maintained at their local shops. There is a community component to it. There is an individual component—not dropping your litter, for example. But when it is about overflowing bins, for example, we do expect those bins to be emptied on a more frequent basis.
Local shops provide a meeting place for people. Many of them these days have cafes and coffee shops where people get together and arrange to meet each other ahead of time, as well as when they accidentally bump into each other while they are out doing their shopping. They have seating throughout shopping centres these days. You will probably note that on hot days shopping centres are busier because they provide air conditioning.
It is important that we look after the amenity of shopping centres. In many cases that is the responsibility internally of the shop owners or management, but externally there is still much that the government can do. We appear to have had an erosion of the level of local maintenance over the past few years. People would like to see that, for their ever-increasing rates, they are maintaining at least the same level of basic local services.
I would encourage the government to think about that. I, for one, in case the minister has not noticed, am an avid user of fix my street. I report many issues on fix my street. I am still concerned about the lack of a feedback loop in relation to fix my street, but it is a good way of keeping track of complaints about basic local services. I am sure it is something that we will talk about a lot more in this place over the next few years, because people expect to be able to maintain their current level of basic local services, if not see an increase in them, having regard to their ever-increasing rates.
Once again, I thank Ms Lee for bringing this motion to the Assembly and I look forward to the time when we can see an improvement in basic local services.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for Regulatory Services, Minister for the Arts and Community Events and Minister for Veterans and Seniors) (4.37): I was not intending to speak on this motion, but I noted Ms Lee’s comments on the enforcement of parking and I thought it was important to make some corrections to the record. It seems Ms Lee has not been listening particularly closely to some of my speeches when I have spoken about Access Canberra. If she had, she would have known that a large number of measures in this budget will go to help enforcing parking in the city, so I would like to repeat them for her.
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