Public Servants use Commonwealth computers in parking scam

p1 said :

[Well, while this is kinda true, it is also pretty disingenuous. I don’t recall anytime where the gov’t has said “we have to make $10m a year from pay parking… we only made $9m ‘cause some people keep moving their cars…. better up the price!”

This isn’t shoplifting, the government doesn’t have to up the cost of the spots people pay for to cover the loss of people stealing the use of others.

They have to build the car park in the first place and then maintain it by resurfacing it every few years and upgrading parking voucher machines and maybe installing boom gates. No such thing as a free lunch someone famous once said.

milkman said :

Maya123 said :

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

Maya123 said :

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

PBO said :

How is this a scam? ACT guvmint is missing out on money? Bottom feeding parking inspectors quota’s (or Key Performance Indicator’s) are dropping?

Here is some news: Everywhere does it and it is not a scam! It saves money so people can waste it on things like paying their rent or buying food or paying power bills, not every public servant is a millionaire. Some actually do it pretty tough and parking fines seem to be going up and up but the people get no benefit from it aside from ugly, shonky, public art installations which were chosen and built with no public consultation (Stanhope).

If the ACT was interested in doing good for its people then they should stop making car-parks into cash-cows.

But… but… but… if we make all the carparks expensive, everyone will use the bus!

That’s what I used to do when I worked. Mostly I rode a bike, because it was quicker than the buses, but in wet weather I caught a bus. If I wanted to use a bus to get close to work I needed two buses, but I found it quicker to catch the first bus to the stop closest to work and then walk the two kms from there to work. Quicker than waiting 20 or more minutes for the next bus, and I got some exercise. Those in the Parliamentary triangle are lucky with all the buses that go through there. On Kings Avenue it’s one every few minutes (or less). I have a half hour bus service to home and to my work (one bus route only, unlike Kings Avenue with its many) it was another half hour bus service, and their timing to each other was not good. (Still I did have buses available.) I took a part-time job after I retired and the nearest bus for me was 1.5kms from work. Still not a problem; I just walked or again cycled.

You’ve obviously never needed to pick up or drop off kids, attend multiple work places in a day or do something after work. With buses and bikes, these things just don’t work.

A general statement with presumptions that does not apply to everyone, and for those that it does, only a small proportion of their working career.
I have seen children being towed in bike trailers to school before their parents go off to work. I have seen some parents picking their children up from school and then they would all ride off on bikes. I guess they could have driven like many other parents, but they didn’t. Perhaps you should send your children to a school closer to home, or on the way to work. This doesn’t work for everyone I agree, but it’s amazing how many parents seem to make life difficult for themselves by living at one end of town and sending their children to school many suburbs away.
It’s true that I’ve never had to drop off children on the way to work either, but then I would send them to the local school. They could walk or cycle. And they don’t need to be delivered to school all their school life; only when younger. I walked to school by myself when I was four, although I admit that school was only down the road. But after that I went to many schools and I always walked/cycled to school without an adult, and once when I lived on a farm, bused. (Do you have any idea how many hours some children in the country travel on buses to schools? Hours- not ideal.) However, other family members have children and they went to the government schools near them. They didn’t drive them across town. For most people, needing to get their children to school and pick them up, is only a few years of their working life. If those without this need left their car at home, imagine all the parking spaces that would free up.
If the multiple work places belong to the one job, your work should be providing you transportation and if it’s a work vehicle, parking should them not be a problem. After all, not everyone owns a car. When I worked there were work cars and preserved parking for them. So I could cycle/bus to work and then use one of the work cars as need arose. If you are meaning that you have several different jobs, then this could be a problem for you if they are far apart, but most people only have one job, so this doesn’t apply for most people. Most people don’t need to go from job to job during the day.
Of cause I have had things to do after work. For several years study. If that meant I might be coming home late in the dark I might have caught the bus rather than cycled. I would also chose, where possible, events to attend closer to home. Perhaps I might cycle/bus home, grab a quick dinner and then drive to that event.
The discussion here was about car parking at work in the Parliamentary triangle; which mostly concerns Public Service jobs.

Is this for real?

There are plenty of people who have to drop off kids to more than one location, and plenty of people who work at more than one location. I work at multiple places during the day, and being self-employed means I don’t have an employer to provide either a car or parking. Further, being self employed means it’s far more cost effective for me to drive rather than waste time on slow trasport (ie public or bike).

I’m sure some people can use busses and bikes effectively, but for plenty of us that’s simply not viable.

And there are plenty of non public servants in the parliamentary triangle. For example, Barton has a lot of private organisations, like IBM, CSC, etc.

Yes, this is for real. Because if people weren’t parking all day in the two hour parking spots, people like you would be able to find a short term park. Many more people could catch a bus or cycle. My previous comments stand. I will add though, that in my previous job we had had paid parking for years and with nowhere as good a bus service that the Parliamentary triangle gets. We had one bus over a wide area half hourly.

Maya123 said :

A general statement with presumptions that does not apply to everyone, and for those that it does, only a small proportion of their working career.

I’d say your post has an awful lot of presumptions in it too. Lots of employers don’t provide transport or parking (you can sometimes claim it, or claim as a tax deduction). Also, people who travel but have kids in school close to home have to drive between these places. Childcare is even more complicated, given how difficult some people find it to get childcare placement.

Buses are fine for some, as is riding, but not for many (dare I say the majority?).

davo101 said :

Mysteryman said :

That’s not how rates work. Try again.

Right-o then, I suppose you think that we’d use magic money from the magic money tree to pay for the stuff funded from parking fees. If the Territory didn’t collect parking fees where else do you think they’d get the money?

Well, while this is kinda true, it is also pretty disingenuous. I don’t recall anytime where the gov’t has said “we have to make $10m a year from pay parking… we only made $9m ‘cause some people keep moving their cars…. better up the price!”

This isn’t shoplifting, the government doesn’t have to up the cost of the spots people pay for to cover the loss of people stealing the use of others.

The only way that the government could get me to use public transport is if they had sniffer dogs at the boarding gate. Not to detect drugs, or explosives, just to detect offensive body odours and prevent those people from entering.

The two times I have used public transport in Canberra the stench of the literally great unwashed masses was overpowering and stayed on my clothes all day.

Maya123 said :

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

Maya123 said :

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

PBO said :

How is this a scam? ACT guvmint is missing out on money? Bottom feeding parking inspectors quota’s (or Key Performance Indicator’s) are dropping?

Here is some news: Everywhere does it and it is not a scam! It saves money so people can waste it on things like paying their rent or buying food or paying power bills, not every public servant is a millionaire. Some actually do it pretty tough and parking fines seem to be going up and up but the people get no benefit from it aside from ugly, shonky, public art installations which were chosen and built with no public consultation (Stanhope).

If the ACT was interested in doing good for its people then they should stop making car-parks into cash-cows.

But… but… but… if we make all the carparks expensive, everyone will use the bus!

That’s what I used to do when I worked. Mostly I rode a bike, because it was quicker than the buses, but in wet weather I caught a bus. If I wanted to use a bus to get close to work I needed two buses, but I found it quicker to catch the first bus to the stop closest to work and then walk the two kms from there to work. Quicker than waiting 20 or more minutes for the next bus, and I got some exercise. Those in the Parliamentary triangle are lucky with all the buses that go through there. On Kings Avenue it’s one every few minutes (or less). I have a half hour bus service to home and to my work (one bus route only, unlike Kings Avenue with its many) it was another half hour bus service, and their timing to each other was not good. (Still I did have buses available.) I took a part-time job after I retired and the nearest bus for me was 1.5kms from work. Still not a problem; I just walked or again cycled.

You’ve obviously never needed to pick up or drop off kids, attend multiple work places in a day or do something after work. With buses and bikes, these things just don’t work.

A general statement with presumptions that does not apply to everyone, and for those that it does, only a small proportion of their working career.
I have seen children being towed in bike trailers to school before their parents go off to work. I have seen some parents picking their children up from school and then they would all ride off on bikes. I guess they could have driven like many other parents, but they didn’t. Perhaps you should send your children to a school closer to home, or on the way to work. This doesn’t work for everyone I agree, but it’s amazing how many parents seem to make life difficult for themselves by living at one end of town and sending their children to school many suburbs away.
It’s true that I’ve never had to drop off children on the way to work either, but then I would send them to the local school. They could walk or cycle. And they don’t need to be delivered to school all their school life; only when younger. I walked to school by myself when I was four, although I admit that school was only down the road. But after that I went to many schools and I always walked/cycled to school without an adult, and once when I lived on a farm, bused. (Do you have any idea how many hours some children in the country travel on buses to schools? Hours- not ideal.) However, other family members have children and they went to the government schools near them. They didn’t drive them across town. For most people, needing to get their children to school and pick them up, is only a few years of their working life. If those without this need left their car at home, imagine all the parking spaces that would free up.
If the multiple work places belong to the one job, your work should be providing you transportation and if it’s a work vehicle, parking should them not be a problem. After all, not everyone owns a car. When I worked there were work cars and preserved parking for them. So I could cycle/bus to work and then use one of the work cars as need arose. If you are meaning that you have several different jobs, then this could be a problem for you if they are far apart, but most people only have one job, so this doesn’t apply for most people. Most people don’t need to go from job to job during the day.
Of cause I have had things to do after work. For several years study. If that meant I might be coming home late in the dark I might have caught the bus rather than cycled. I would also chose, where possible, events to attend closer to home. Perhaps I might cycle/bus home, grab a quick dinner and then drive to that event.
The discussion here was about car parking at work in the Parliamentary triangle; which mostly concerns Public Service jobs.

Is this for real?

There are plenty of people who have to drop off kids to more than one location, and plenty of people who work at more than one location. I work at multiple places during the day, and being self-employed means I don’t have an employer to provide either a car or parking. Further, being self employed means it’s far more cost effective for me to drive rather than waste time on slow trasport (ie public or bike).

I’m sure some people can use busses and bikes effectively, but for plenty of us that’s simply not viable.

And there are plenty of non public servants in the parliamentary triangle. For example, Barton has a lot of private organisations, like IBM, CSC, etc.

PBO said :

How is this a scam? ACT guvmint is missing out on money? Bottom feeding parking inspectors quota’s (or Key Performance Indicator’s) are dropping?

Here is some news: Everywhere does it and it is not a scam! It saves money so people can waste it on things like paying their rent or buying food or paying power bills, not every public servant is a millionaire. Some actually do it pretty tough and parking fines seem to be going up and up but the people get no benefit from it aside from ugly, shonky, public art installations which were chosen and built with no public consultation (Stanhope).

If the ACT was interested in doing good for its people then they should stop making car-parks into cash-cows.

You’ve kind of missed the point of two or less hour parking spots. The whole idea is that people who need to park all day park somewhere else a little further away. Those who have short visits eg. meetings then have some closer parking available. I guess next you’ll park in the 5min spots outside the Post Office and keep moving your car, the Parking Inspectors are just enforcing a rule put there to try to deal with people like you.

Mysteryman said :

That’s not how rates work. Try again.

Right-o then, I suppose you think that we’d use magic money from the magic money tree to pay for the stuff funded from parking fees. If the Territory didn’t collect parking fees where else do you think they’d get the money?

justsomeaussie said :

I’m going to put something radical out there so bear with me. How about 10 minutes from civic we have a cheap parking garage with places for bikes and to rent bikes and has frequent buses. That way we can drive to the carpark drop cars off then catch busess/ride bikes into the city.

You mean like the park and ride outside Epic that has a bus heading straight down Northbourne every 15 minutes on a weekday?

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

Maya123 said :

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

PBO said :

How is this a scam? ACT guvmint is missing out on money? Bottom feeding parking inspectors quota’s (or Key Performance Indicator’s) are dropping?

Here is some news: Everywhere does it and it is not a scam! It saves money so people can waste it on things like paying their rent or buying food or paying power bills, not every public servant is a millionaire. Some actually do it pretty tough and parking fines seem to be going up and up but the people get no benefit from it aside from ugly, shonky, public art installations which were chosen and built with no public consultation (Stanhope).

If the ACT was interested in doing good for its people then they should stop making car-parks into cash-cows.

But… but… but… if we make all the carparks expensive, everyone will use the bus!

That’s what I used to do when I worked. Mostly I rode a bike, because it was quicker than the buses, but in wet weather I caught a bus. If I wanted to use a bus to get close to work I needed two buses, but I found it quicker to catch the first bus to the stop closest to work and then walk the two kms from there to work. Quicker than waiting 20 or more minutes for the next bus, and I got some exercise. Those in the Parliamentary triangle are lucky with all the buses that go through there. On Kings Avenue it’s one every few minutes (or less). I have a half hour bus service to home and to my work (one bus route only, unlike Kings Avenue with its many) it was another half hour bus service, and their timing to each other was not good. (Still I did have buses available.) I took a part-time job after I retired and the nearest bus for me was 1.5kms from work. Still not a problem; I just walked or again cycled.

You’ve obviously never needed to pick up or drop off kids, attend multiple work places in a day or do something after work. With buses and bikes, these things just don’t work.

A general statement with presumptions that does not apply to everyone, and for those that it does, only a small proportion of their working career.
I have seen children being towed in bike trailers to school before their parents go off to work. I have seen some parents picking their children up from school and then they would all ride off on bikes. I guess they could have driven like many other parents, but they didn’t. Perhaps you should send your children to a school closer to home, or on the way to work. This doesn’t work for everyone I agree, but it’s amazing how many parents seem to make life difficult for themselves by living at one end of town and sending their children to school many suburbs away.
It’s true that I’ve never had to drop off children on the way to work either, but then I would send them to the local school. They could walk or cycle. And they don’t need to be delivered to school all their school life; only when younger. I walked to school by myself when I was four, although I admit that school was only down the road. But after that I went to many schools and I always walked/cycled to school without an adult, and once when I lived on a farm, bused. (Do you have any idea how many hours some children in the country travel on buses to schools? Hours- not ideal.) However, other family members have children and they went to the government schools near them. They didn’t drive them across town. For most people, needing to get their children to school and pick them up, is only a few years of their working life. If those without this need left their car at home, imagine all the parking spaces that would free up.
If the multiple work places belong to the one job, your work should be providing you transportation and if it’s a work vehicle, parking should them not be a problem. After all, not everyone owns a car. When I worked there were work cars and preserved parking for them. So I could cycle/bus to work and then use one of the work cars as need arose. If you are meaning that you have several different jobs, then this could be a problem for you if they are far apart, but most people only have one job, so this doesn’t apply for most people. Most people don’t need to go from job to job during the day.
Of cause I have had things to do after work. For several years study. If that meant I might be coming home late in the dark I might have caught the bus rather than cycled. I would also chose, where possible, events to attend closer to home. Perhaps I might cycle/bus home, grab a quick dinner and then drive to that event.
The discussion here was about car parking at work in the Parliamentary triangle; which mostly concerns Public Service jobs.