Page 4084 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 23 October 2018

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Mrs Dunne: Point of order, Madam Speaker.

MADAM SPEAKER: Resume your seat, minister. Mrs Dunne.

Mrs Dunne: This is question time; it is not debating time, Madam Speaker. The question was about how members of the public could trust the process. It is not an opportunity for the minister to attack the opposition. It is to address the answer and be directly relevant to the question.

MADAM SPEAKER: Thank you, Mrs Dunne. There is no point of order. At the beginning of the response the minister referred to the independent panel and the processes attached to that. Did you have something further to add?

MS FITZHARRIS: No.

ACTION bus service—network

MS LE COUTEUR: My question is to the Minister for Transport. It relates to distances to rapid buses under network 19. Minister, in June you said that 55 per cent of Canberrans would be within 800 metres walk of a rapid or light rail stop, while on 25 September the Canberra Times published an analysis saying that only a third of us will be. Why are the figures different?

MS FITZHARRIS: I thank Ms Le Couteur for the question. It is because, quite simply, they have used a different methodology. The methodology that the ACT government used is based on both the transport for Canberra policy released in 2012 and the estate development code, which indicates that the walking distance for rapid public transport services is an 800-metre walking distance and a local service is a 500-metre distance.

What we know about the revised bus network, which has now been released, is that it is one of the biggest public transport investments in our bus network in decades, a $50 million investment in operating services, and 80 new buses going into the fleet at a cost of $43 million. What we believe is that this network is quite simply going to deliver significantly more buses for Canberra—

Ms Le Couteur: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, I am not asking whether it is a good or bad network, just how they worked out the distances. I am not disputing whether it is a good or a bad network.

MADAM SPEAKER: The distances, or the difference?

Ms Le Couteur: The distances.

MS FITZHARRIS: As I indicated, the distances were 800 metres from a high frequency public transport stop and 500 metres from a local stop. The methodology used by the ACT government, explained in the transport for Canberra policy and also in the estate development code, is that it is radial distance and may not take into


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