Part Two: Carmel Tebbutt answers YOUR questions January 19, 2011

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We put the call out to the Inner West Live! community for any questions you were itching to ask Deputy Premier and local member for Marrickville, Carmel Tebbutt.

With the government struggling to cope with the number of daycare places needed, does your state plan help this issue?

It does in so far as we’ve put a responsibility on preschools, but daycare is the responsibility of the federal government.

I have, when I was Education Minister, worked hard to get an after hours daycare centre up and running at Marrackville West public school because that was one of the issues I could see in the local area. We did that with the local council and I think that’s still up and running.

I think part of the difficulty in that in other parts of the city, there are more [childcare] places, but in the inner west, because land prices are so much more expensive, it’s hard for daycare centres to establish themsevles.

Will the St Peters station be getting wheelchair and pram access?

It’s actually not in my electorate. Newtown is being upgraded, as is Sydenham station for disability access.

What are you seeing done in preventing gas drilling in the inner west suburbs?

The important thing to note is that it’s actually an exploration licence, not a gas production licence. If there was to be a license for gas production, then that would have to go through a full planning process and consultation.

I understand people’s concerns, but I also recognise that we need to look for alternative fuel sources to coal. We know that we can’t rely on coal forever, and gas is a much cleaner form of energy so we need to be conscious of that.

We’ve also put in place some changes as result of some of the concerns that were raised by the St Peters community in regards to exploration licsnces for the future.

Has there been consideration to raising the hub?

I think it would be fantastic if we could find a useful creative way for that space to be opened up to the community because its in a great location. I think the problem will be parking because anything they want to put there is going to probably going to have a parking impact and there isn’t the capacity to put that there

It’s such a great location, it’s such a shame that they haven’t been able to put it there.

Does Carmel feel threatened by the greens in the lead up to the 2011 election?

I know that the March election is going to be a tough election in Marrackville. I went from the lower house to the upper house in 2005, and every election in Marrickville is tough, but what I would say is that I think the people of Marrickville are best served by having a member of parliament who is part of an effective group of people in parliament who can make change.

Ultimately, on March 26 we will see the decision!

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