088. Ian Sansom


QuestionResponse
What services do you believe are most important for the ACT? As we are like a state government, health, education, transport (public transport and roads/cycle paths/footpaths), legal/policing services, the environment, planning and construction supervision etc. This means provision of recurrent, cyclic costs to maintain these services and capital funding (hopefully jointly with the unsympathetic Federal Government) to continue to develop these services. As we are retired we are more interested personally in health, transport and particularly the environment including planning, parks, tree planting etc., but the other services are just as important. Congratulations on your energy policies and the light rail!
How can the ACT Government deliver current services more efficiently and productively or to better meet the needs of Canberrans?Regularly measuring performance of service providers objectively and removing non-performers (BUPA aged care homes, construction firms failing to meet basic code requirements etc.), but I'm sure you think this is all already in place. Your ACT YourSay community forums are brilliant and leave rat race metropolises like Sydney and Melbourne for dead, so please maintain these and publicise them so the inhabitants know and appreciate your efforts. My concern is that conservative Liberals will seize an agenda to stifle the dynamic quality of Canberra.
Are there particular services that you think the ACT Government can improve?As a retired award-winning architect who moved from Sydney to Canberra three years ago, I am impressed by the efficiency of having one local government authority to deal with instead of the myriad of often confusing rules of local councils and state government. Please maintain your priorities of addressing climate change, energy efficiencies and alternatives, greening of the city with more tree planting (doctors bury their mistakes, planners plant trees) and a 21st century public transport plan (i.e. light rail, despite the naysayers, who must be related to climate change "skeptics"). So please maintain and upgrade health facilities, education, transport etc. plus the wonderful variety of events that makes Canberra worth visiting, living in and being uplifted by.
What can the ACT Government do to make Canberra even more liveable?Keep the developers at bay, but not at the expense of maintaining Canberra's evolution into a more modern, cosmopolitan city which offers lots of (affordable) living alternatives, enviable cultural, social and environmental opportunities. Twenty years ago I couldn't find any night life, but now it's blessed with restaurants, food precincts, theatre, music gigs etc plus your special events. Look at Kingston 20 years ago and now....keep this up, but not at the expense of developing and enhancing the natural environment. Canberra should proudly retain its "Bush Capital"reputation, and its fabulous cultural environment of galleries, libraries, theatres etc.