Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis says he’s received reports people have been driving over the Rapid Creek footbridge, which has been temporarily fixed

Transcript

Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis says he’s received reports people have been driving over the Rapid Creek footbridge, which has been temporarily fixed · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fan me live in the studio right now is the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Lord Mayor of Darwin conbat Scarlets. Good morning to yukonn.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Good morning Katie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: You were approaching Christmas. I hear you talking about what
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: are you doing for Christmas Day? That sounds very tempting.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't have to clean up man give presents.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And it sounds like an ice terrible eye for a day,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: doesn't I?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I think so?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Now corn plenty happening, and when we talk about Christmas,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the Christmas pageant obviously happened over the weekend. Thousands of
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: people turned out.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you were not there.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I couldn't go out.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I know I heard about it. But did your kids
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: hate you for that?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Filthy at me that I didn't take them that Patrick
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and I didn't take them to the Christmas pageant. But anyway, I.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Was the first since nineteen seventy seven. It was fantastic,
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: It was big. The community response was tremendous. About seven
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: thousand people turn up for the Christmas pageant and the
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: lighting of the tree.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: That was a real festive season.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Filling people were happy, fifty floats from schools, even private business.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: I was actually blown away so much so that I
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: said the Chief Ministers. Chief Minister, I think we have
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: to do it next year. Well, council is very keen
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: to see it next year. So I'll be talking to
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: the government to see how I can do it together,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: because they're really good. We work together rather and actually
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: work against each other. Let's get you know, forced together
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: deliver some for a community.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Was there how much funding was required?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: I have no idea that the thing is. Again, it's
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: the outcome.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Because seven thousand people taining up massively in a city,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: They're spending. They have to buy drinks, they have to
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: buy I had one particular ice cream vendor. He couldn't
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: serve the people because so many people queuing outside to
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: get ice cream. They had to bring extra workers. Now
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: you can spend one hundred thousand dollars, let's say a
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: hundred thousand. Don't think it was one hundred thousand. But
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: if the income to the city traders about two hundred
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars, three hundred thousand dollars, that's money well spent.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Well, con I've just revealed the government did just reveal
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: all the Department revealed to me a bit early this morning.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I spent more than eleven billion dollars on the electronic
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: signage around around the territory.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: So if there's thousand dollars to the page and that's pinuts. Now,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: yesterday was an US ninety million dollars deaths in the
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: health department. Boy, somebody should be answer questions for that.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an unbelievable amount of money, isn't it? Absolutely unbelievable. Corn,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: It's not the only thing. The Christmas pageants not the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: only thing that's been happening.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I know that's for a long time.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I've been asking a lot about this footbridge because our
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: listeners keep asking about the footbridge. Where's an ash You
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: can walk.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: On over it, you can cross the rapid creek got
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: on the other side.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: It's been repaired, it's been fixed.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: It is as a stress again, it's a temporary repair
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: to actually support the bridge.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Now it's going to be replaced in the near future.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: The other thing I found out though from our CITYV
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: cameras that people were driving over the.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Bridge, driving right over the bridge.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: And obviously the bridge is built for a foot traffic
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: and busket traffic, not for cars.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Now you know why it actually had a problem.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: But please just follow the instructions cross the bridge with
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: care that temporary repairs in place. It's been certified by
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: a structure engineer. It's safe to walk through until we
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: replace it.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: So are there any fines or anything going to be
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: issued to those people that were driving over them? I mean,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: if it's if there's CCTV, the shows are.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: We're going to make the bridge narrow so a car
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: cannot fit on it.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But that's pretty wild. It's nice.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, I'm not going to go further that one, but
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: that so sometimes what people are doing and then people
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: complaining about things breaking down.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: It fixed the footbridge. It's resolved.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: The other thing I want to talk to you about,
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: and we're talking about bridge and upgrades. It's six playgrounds
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: in down They're going to be fixed and upgraded the
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: next few months. Bold Park in naroa Hardwood Park in Akara,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Eaton Park in Karama, Thornton Park in moyle Killian Packing
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Gingili Lawns, Bonnie Park in Para. They all get new
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: play equipment. The exit is sunder and grass beneath. Play
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: equipment would replaced by softball zone. So we're actually upgrading
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of display areas for young citizens. Because some
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: of them been for a long time, require attention. Wis
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: spend the money and they're going to be upgraded.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And next year.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Con I think it is a great thing to do.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Particularly I know when my children were small and you
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: take them to the park, it would help to really
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: get through the day and wear them out. Somebody did
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: actually message us about this yesterday and said, until the
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: anti social behavior issues can be fixed in Karama, there's
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: no point in upgrading the playground.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: It's both ways.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: If you don't fix them, you've got people going there
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: because nobody uses them. But if we fix them and
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: people use them, the people there and this social behavior
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: does take place because the drugs and the tenerants do
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: not congregate where there are people, so sometimes get reactivating
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: a space.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It could be a dissociate behavior.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Is the council having to spend a lot of money
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: at this point in terms of cleaning up broken class
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and things like that.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I tell you how about it is.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: It's so bad that I put it bluntly to the
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Chief Minister said, well, I can't afford any more to
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: clean the place up. You have to come to the party.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: We're negotiating now with the corrections to provide people from
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Corrections from the prisons to actually help us clean the
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: place up.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: This is not our making. We were working over time.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: People are having to put with a lot of things,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: sometimes even verbal assault or physical assault. Enough is enough.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Chief Minister. It's not Council's fault, but we
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: have to pick up the pieces. Come to the party
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: and to thanks to her, she agreed and now we've
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: got an agreement to be signed between us down to
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: the councilor corrections.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Oy. So when are you expecting that agreement to be sorry,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: just going.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Through the legals now, who is going to be responsible
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: for what? I expect very very soon?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah right. I mean that's a pretty big call to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: have to do that. But I noticed that when I
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: was running around the.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Sports for you and every other rate payer in Darwin
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: to use their rates to clean up when it's not
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: our fault. And in some area it's it's tremendous, it's terrible.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, you go down to a nightcliff for s
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: or in some areas where people tend to come, they
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: just go there, drop them there and they walk away.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Hello, you call it a problem. Clean it up. If
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: they don't clean it up. Somebody used to cleaned up,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: usually the.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Council con We're talking to Rex Nindel in Alice Springs
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: yesterday who was saying that that he'd noticed at the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: you know, near the Desert Park, that there'd been an
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: increase in the volume of like you know, of hand
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: sanitizer bottles and things like that that are being considered if.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: They drink it.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: So is that something that's because.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: It's called alcohol anything. Look, people are really really addicted
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: to alcohol that we use anything. I've seen people drinking
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: perfume because they're addicted to alcohol.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: And this is a problem.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: The problem we've got is there's no mechanism or to
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: support these people. I mean, it's very is to say
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: don't sell them alcohol. They try to do anything. I mean,
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: you know how the floor price these people now they
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: moved from the chip wire to the to the hard
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: liqua because they get more hit for their for the money.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: It's an endless, endless.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: Cycle that people addicted spend the money drink, The more
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: they drink, the more addicted they become.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So has there been an increased though from council's perspective,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: in terms of the volume of hand sanitizer bottles or
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: anything like that. I mean, that's why I've heard preship that.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Kind of report yet.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: But I know very well that you actually get a
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: lot of reports about bundy and rum bottles thrown around,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: and that's a concern.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Con there is a lot happening at the moment. I
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: want to touch on more trees being given out. People
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: love this, don't they.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Well, we actually gave trees in night leave two weeks ago.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: I went there about eight fifteen in the morning and
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: there were about four hundred people waiting. We get two
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: thousand people, two thousand trees to people down with residents only. Sorry,
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: Palmerston residents and Litchfield. Talk to your mayor and they
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: can organize it. The next one is at the Worry
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: of All on Saturday, the tenth of December, eight am
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: to eleven am.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: People love trees.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: The only problem I've got in because some people that
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: actually refused to cut any tree down.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Recently, I had the spot.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: With the person in another program, how dare you cut
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: the trees in bagged Road?
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: In the inbaggoed oval because of the of the park.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Now, for your information, we had an arborist independent uppers
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: fully qualified were through every single tree recorded in a
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: report that present to council. Got hold of the report,
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: and I'll tell you what. From all the trees he inspected,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: we kept about six and they were mainly figus healthy.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: The mahoganists we removed. The structure was either very poor
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: or poor, and the health was very questionable to very poor.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: We do not just cut trees because we like cutting
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: page dock.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: That's worth pointing out though. Those trees, like when you'd
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: initially told me that they were going to be cut down,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I'd assume the immense sort of around the oval, but
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: they're actually in the car park.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: They're in the car park, they're not around the oval. Now.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: The other thing is we cut these trees, we fixed
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: the car pa. We're going to replace them with multiple
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: of these trees. We did that in the velodrome. We
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: cut down seven trees, so we put twenty three twenty
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: four trees. So it's not like cutting trees down for
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: the sake of cutting trees. Let me remind the people
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: that actually complain about cutting mahogany down. We had two
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: deaths already for Mahoganists. They didn't fare very well in
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: the cyclone most of them came down, and most of
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: them create damage to other power lines, houses, furches.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: So they're not the best tree for Darwin.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: And we already had an advice by experts to say
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: do not plant them again, and I agree with that.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: The luck they look beautiful when they're young, they grow
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: very quickly, but come a cyclone, you won't like it
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: when it felt in your house.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: No, that's exactly.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Also they take to get sick.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: And the other thing I had a lady emailed me says,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: why did you remove the tree opposite one and ten Esplanade.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: I got the report the point had lost half of
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: its trunk, It had infection by a virus, and inside
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: the trunk it was all rotten because it was unstable,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: it was unsafe. I don't wait until somebody gets killed
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: an injured to remove it. We proactively remove it. We
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: plant other.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Trees, combat scarlets. The Lord Mayor of dow and we
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: are going to have to leave it there. Good to
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: catch up with you as always.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Always, and I think we're going to get some rain today.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: Hopefully this time you're not going to go around.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Please come straight, Yeah, exactly, good on you can thank
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: you