Page 289 - Week 01 - Thursday, 24 February 1994
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By applying parameters under which motor sports can be undertaken in the ACT, the Government will be instrumental in setting guidelines for those participants in the sports to adhere to. After all, how can you adhere to standards if you do not know what the standards are? It would also ensure overall standards with regard to noise levels, such as the type of instrumentation used for measuring noise levels, the procedures by which noise levels are determined, and measurement procedures used for testing noise levels. The above factors are important in providing the relevant parameters under which motor sports can be conducted. We also believe that it is in the interests of the ACT community as a whole to have parameters by which the community complies. In saying this, the Liberal Party believes that it is not only essential, but absolutely vital, that section 12 of the Noise Control Manual be rewritten according to the Australian Standards, or as close as possible to it. We often see Bills introduced in this Assembly amending Acts so as to reflect what is occurring in the rest of Australia. Some recent Bills that come to mind related to heavy vehicles, the recognition of national standards for the professions and the quality standards of various products.
The Minister for Sport and the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning recently announced in a joint statement an acoustic study into the possible new location of motor sports in the ACT. This, the Ministers announced, was because of ongoing complaints and also because the Government is determined that the site chosen be one that will comply with the noise control legislation. We know that the Act covers exemptions, and, to be fair to the Minister, we believe that he has been fair to motor sports and has given some exemptions. Some of those exemptions were for Fairbairn Park, which covers the formula 500, the go-karts, the hill climb track and the motorbike lap, and also for Sutton Park, where four exemptions were allowed for conducting motor sports. But the Minister surely must be aware that more noise comes from the heavy truck driving training about which, for some strange reason, there do not seem to be any complaints.
In areas such as Fyshwick, Hume and Mitchell the noise level during daytime is 55 decibels. Yet, in the Minister's answer to a question from Mr Humphries, he said that at Fairbairn Park there are 30 exemptions at six to 10 decibels over background noise, 10 at 11 to 15, and four at 16 to 20. Let us look at Fairbairn Park. We understand that there are very few complaints received; yet, in the Minister's own words, the nearest house in the ACT is at Oaks Estate, 1,168 metres, or just over a kilometre, away. However, there have been so-called complaints from the Ridgeway. The distance from Sutton Park to the nearest housing, not in the ACT but at the Ridgeway, is 1,583.9 metres, or over a kilometre-and-a-half. We find that very hard to understand. There have been no complaints, as far as we know, about the noise from motor boats on the Molonglo River, and the nearest house is only 200 metres from the area motor boats use.
Mr Minister, we find it strange that we cannot have a noise standard for conducting motor sports events at Sutton Park and Fairbairn Park. We all know that the integrated environment protection legislation will not be going through tomorrow, nor will a new site for the motor sports complex be decided tomorrow. That brings me back to my earlier point: Would it not have been better not to go through those bits of legislation piecemeal but to wait for the integrated legislation?
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