Page 4478 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 1993
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The driver complex remains a government asset, but it is managed by a management board comprising members from relevant private organisations, the Trades and Labour Council, ACT Government representatives and the ACT Motorsport Council. Community leases such as this one provide valuable facilities for community use at no cost to the Government or the broad community. It could have been a considerable expense for us, but it has not been. The Transport Training Council maintains the Sutton Road complex at its own expense. As a non-profit organisation, the Transport Training Council hires out the facility for as much as possible, to keep costs and hiring fees down for all its uses.
The previous Government did assess the facility for substantial motor sport use. That would have required significant funds. The former Chief Minister, Trevor Kaine, was right when he rejected the motor racing proposal by the Canberra International Raceway management, as it was not economically viable and the Government of the day did not wish to provide the funds required. When Mr Stevenson was speaking a short time ago I checked with Mr Kaine on the issue. Mr Kaine may wish to join the debate; but the words he used to me a moment ago, as I recall, were "not economically viable". There may have been reports that said to spend this amount of money or that amount of money, but the proposition was rejected then as not economically viable.
But the facts go beyond that. Even if it was economically viable, this is not a motor racing facility. It was designed for training. For example, it has a variety of different road surfaces, some cambers that are not too good and funny corners, because it was designed to train police, in the first instance, to handle difficult road conditions. That is what it was designed for. It was never designed as a racing facility. While people may have said that we can redesign it - certainly a sum of money could have been provided to totally redo the thing - you would have found that the high cost made it not economically viable. (Quorum formed)
There is a further most significant problem attached to this. Even if every condition had been right and we could have converted it to a racing facility by putting in that extra money, and if it had been economically viable, we could not have had a motor sport facility there, and certainly not a racing facility, because of the noise problem. That is a problem that we still face today, even with the very limited sports activity that goes on there. It is inappropriate for use as a motor sport facility as it is in a valley, which exacerbates the noise emanating from the site. I think Ms Szuty asked me a question the other day about monitoring the sound on the Ridgeway in New South Wales. I replied then that we have legislation about noise and I have to observe that legislation. The residents in New South Wales are dissatisfied still. It could never be a motor racing facility. It is simply not possible because of the noise.
So what have we done? We have gone into an extensive search - it is a pretty difficult search, but we are getting there - to find some other area in Canberra that is suitable as a motor racing facility; one that is distant enough from neighbours and one that is appropriate. We will find that site in due course, and that is where the sports racing facility will be. It cannot be at Sutton Road. That is a simple fact of life, and we have to look elsewhere. Therefore, we come back to this purpose. It is the purpose for which that site was built.
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