Parton / Growing problem from the grassroots

WHEN I tried to win a seat in the Legislative Assembly a few years ago, I was criticised for describing it as “a trumped-up town council”.

At the time I didn’t necessarily mean it as a negative description. Over the years of self government too many MLAs have forgotten that one of their main functions is fulfilling local services: roads, rates and rubbish.

They might sound boring next to tramlines, solar power and gay marriage, but these are the key aspects of govenment.

The government disagrees.

My radio program on 2CC receives a ridiculously high amount of phone traffic from people unhappy with the frequency of TAMS grass cutting in the suburbs. It’s a perennial theme. They call me, they bleat and whinge, they send photos. They talk of near accidents caused by the grass being so high on the median strip that they couldn’t see oncoming traffic.

Former mowing contractors have detailed just how often they used to cut the grass on our major arterials. One spoke of seven cuts before Christmas. In the current regime you’d be very lucky to get two.

Because the weeds are being left so much longer they’re going to seed and spreading. It literally is a jungle out there. West Belconnen is particularly bad.

A lot of the old timers hanker for the days before self government when, they say, the city always looked immaculate. It doesn’t now.

I’ve had numerous conversations recently with mowing contractors, old and new, with bureaucrats, elected officials and opposition leaders. Jane Carder, from TAMS, told me that it’s just not possible for us to cut the grass in the way that we did 15 years ago because it would be far too expensive.

Why? We could do it 15 years ago?

Apparently, we have a much bigger area to cut these days and the budget just doesn’t extend that far.

Enter Jeremy Hanson.

The Liberal leader fell short of making a major policy announcement on my program, but he certainly committed to moving basic municipal services higher up the priority list if he’s ever chief minister.

I asked him where the extra money would come from and his answer was quite predictable: “Light rail and solar farms for starters.”

Jeremy pointed out that if we were spending a tiny fraction of the money being spent on the light rail project on this simple maintenance, it would make the world of difference.

But we NEED the light rail to replace those bus routes that already run down Northbourne Avenue. Don’t we?

 

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