Territory services news

The link between population growth, environment, and infrastructure shortfalls has been topical lately, with both Jon Stanhope and Zed Seselja weighing in.

Stung into action by the Liberals’ push to establish an Infrastructure Commissioner to oversee planning in this critical area, the Chief Minister was touting a new 10-year plan for infrastructure projects as a first ever for the ACT. One has to ask why did it take you so long?

Managing billions of dollars worth of works based purely on what is in the kitty year by year is—in the business world—called management-by-crisis.

But kneecapping his own idea, Zed Seselja has been echoing the development industry mantra that all population growth is good.

The government in the ACT is already struggling to supply infrastructure in Gungahlin beyond what it needs to facilitate further land sales. We have 41,000 people already, with an end population target of around 100,000 people.

There is no way Mr Stanhope’s 10-year plan will adequately meet our needs for core facilities such as adequate public transport and roads for our commutes unless there is a fundamental rethink on budgets. As we have said previously, the ACT needs to embrace borrowing to fund long-life assets and capital works that in turn reduce ongoing spending.

But even that won’t help if Mr Seselja and the developers get their desired population surge.

Often it is the little things, like the core corporate philosophy, that are the difference between an organisation that functions well and one the fails no matter what is tried.

Late last year GCC received a simple request from a resident through our Fix My Street service. It was a simple request to replace a missing bollard that was allowing people to shortcut and thereby endangering local children at play. We passed it on to the TaMS City Rangers. The response we got was a “not our problem – go contact the other people” hospital pass.

It caught me on a bad day and I passed it straight to Chief (and TaMS) Minister Jon Stanhope, making it clear what I thought of the lack of a proactive attitude in TaMS.

For your reading pleasure, the full correspondence follows.

We've been asking the ACT Sports and Recreation Services for months for details on the Throsby Playing Fields, to be located opposite the intersection of Anthony Rolfe Avenue and Horse Park Drive.

Finally we've got hold of a sketch plan, courtesy not of the ACT Government but of the Bush on Boundary environment group...

 

The ACT Territory and Municipal Services is asking community groups how to cut its budget. But they’re focussing on little things like frequency of mowing in parks and cleaning of loos.

On the 23rd February the ACT Government announced that it was seeking feedback on a new plan, Draft Accessible and Inclusive Playgrounds in the ACT – Play Space Strategy, which is intended to improve the accessibility of playgrounds to children with mental and physical disabilities.

The Gungahlin Community Council encourages all Canberrans, and particularly those in the Gungahlin area to provide feedback on the plan. The plan is available for download or from Canberra Connect shopfronts and public libraries. Feedback and comments are open till the 13th March.

In 2008 Sport & Recreation Services has delivered three workshops for ACT community level coaches and officials with the aim to provide generic education, professional development and networking opportunities in the ACT at a small cost to the participant/club. The fourth and final workshop will cover the topic of ‘Warm Up and Training Games’.

The 'Warm up and Training Games Workshop' will be held from 6:30pm - 8:30pm Monday 10 November on the AIS Outdoor Synthetic Pitch. For more details and to register for the workshop, please contact Sam Croser, Sport & Recreation Services, Department of Territory and Municipal Services, phone 6207 0022.

The Sunday Times is reporting today that Andrew Barr has promised a "new online community feedback service 'Fix My Street' that would enable Canberrans to report issues such as graffiti, potholes and lighting."

Strange - GCC launched just this service via our website a couple of months ago - and also discussed it on www.The-RiotACT.com - and we have registered www.fixmystreet.net.au.

We also publicised the service in the latest issue of Gungahlin Smokesignals newsletter, and we know Andrew read this, as every person at our Meet the Candidates night last Wednesday received a hard copy, and they all got soft copies last Monday too.

But at least it means that the ALP has recognised that their government has not been doing a nearly good enough job when it comes to the basic municipal services and urban maintenance.

So if the ALP is back in government after next Saturday, then we guess Andrew will be wanting to talk to us about purchasing our FixMyStreet.net.au domain name...

There have been a lot of promises lately about swimming pools for Gungahlin, but the one thing we haven't heard yet is when?

The ALP made an announcement in August that they would fund the full aquatic complex we have been seeking - 50m main pool, toddlers pool(s) and the all-important 25m learn-to-swim pool. At the time we asked the Liberals whether they intended matching this promise, but got no reply, despite the Liberals running ads in GunSmoke on the pool issue.

Now - in the election tradition of recycling announcements - Sports Minister Andrew Barr has announced $40 million in sports infrastructure - including the $20 million Gungahlin pool again.

When approached by the Canberra Times about the announcement - apart from expressing surprise at the recycled announcement - the key thing I asked for was timing.

The ACT Government's new youth detention centre Bimberi (named after ACT's highest mountain) was opened this week. The first intake of young people is exepcted early in October.

Following are some photos around the centre and the living quarters, including the "safe room", which doesn't look like a great place to spend time...

The Liberals have announced they'll fund a GP clinic for Gungahlin. But they haven't clarified how this fits in with the existing (and funded) proposal from the government to build a community health clinic to the tune of around $18 million. We have raised this concern with the Liberals but are still waiting for clarification.

The Health Minister Katy Gallagherhas in the meantime advised us that the land identified for the clinic is the block immediately behind the Aldi shopping centre. This is a good outcome, and equivalent in size to the parcel we had in mind behind Big W. It will also help the retailers along this back street with additional passing traffic and people.

UPDATE: GCC President Alan Kerlin bailed up Zed Seselja on 666 live radio about our concerns and the lack of a reply from him. We gained a commitment from Zed that their proposal was on top of rather than instead of the previous proposal.

The Gungahlin Community Council questions the recent policy announcement by the ACT Liberals that they intend to spend $20 million on GP clinics across three town centres.

Is this announcement intended to supplement the $18 million that the ACT Government has already allocated to construct a community health clinic in the Gungahlin town centre or is it intended to replace it? The announcement from the Liberals has created confusion and concern.

The current government has allocated $18 million for a single facility in the Gungahlin town centre - are the Liberals through this election policy suggesting that they would only spend a third of this amount on health facilities for the Gungahlin region, effectively short-changing the local region?

The Gungahlin police station is to go over to around-the-clock operations.

GCC talked with Police Minister Simon Corbell about exactly this at the Meet the Ministers meeting on Monday 5 August. His response was that he has additional staff coming online soon, so it would be a matter of timing.

Today he is announcing that the station will receive 24 additional officers and two additional cars, allowing for an expansion to a six-team roster system.

Start date is down for January. Would be better if we could bring this forward to before the busy Christmas period though.

Tick another item off our pre-election campaign list…

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