Page 3503 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
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whether they were allowed to do this when the caravans are so close to each other, I was told that there were no laws to stop this happening. I think we should be looking at whether people can have these fires in caravan parks, because if a fire were to go through one of these caravan parks there would be a lot of lives lost and it would be quite shocking.
As I say, I would like to thank the secretary, Bill Symington. He did a very good job on this. Any request that we made, he was very quick to arrange it for us. The report is a very full report. It gives us a lot to think about and I hope that people will come back with remarks. I find that the print media, particularly the community papers in Canberra, have been very keen to do some stories on fuel heating. I was very pleased to see that. Normally, they are not terribly interested in these things that really do affect a lot of our people in Canberra. I have had quite a few of them contact me and I was very pleased to see this. I would like to see the other media take it up in a full way. Only by the media taking this up, and getting through to the people who have these stoves the message on how they should operate them, are we going to control this problem.
I do not like to say to people that they cannot have something they really want. A lot of people have one of these heaters in their house only for aesthetic reasons. It is not there for heating; it is there just for the appearance. But, if they are going to have them, we have to educate them on how to use them and make sure that they are not polluting the air in Canberra and not making it very difficult for the neighbours living on either side of them who may not have one and may not want to put up with the smoke. I think we have to look into siting, and make people think about their neighbours and the rest of Canberra.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.12): Mr Acting Speaker, I welcome this report. As I think previous speakers have indicated, the bulk of the work of this committee, particularly the hearing of witnesses, was conducted before the change of government in June. As a result, those of us who joined the committee after that, particularly Mr Collaery and I, did so after much of the work already had been done.
I believe that the time spent on this and related questions has been of great value to the Territory. I found the time I spent on this committee, both after the change of government in June and before the first change of government in December 1989, extremely interesting. The report, I think, reflects the great wealth of innovation and initiative which is possible in this important area. I think I received credit from Mr Moore for early work in this area. I am not sure that that is entirely warranted; but I never want to refuse credit when it is offered to me, so I will not.
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