Page 3494 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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In regard to motor sport, the ACT is very different from the rest of the country. I accept, and the motor sports accept too, that there is one type of racing where you will always need exemptions, and that is dragway racing. That is the case in New South Wales. In Canberra, we have the Canberra International Dragway, which is near the RAAF base at Fairbairn. That will continue to need section 16 exemptions, even if my Bill is successful, because that is the case in other States. It is interesting to note that there have been no complaints in relation to the use of the dragway although it certainly generates very loud noise.
There is a further problem, which is the lack of certainty about how noise has actually been measured. There certainly have been complaints made to my party and, no doubt, to the Minister and his department, in relation to how noise is being measured. When a complaint is made, the Environment Protection Authority has to send an inspector to the site and to the nearest residence to where the complaint is actually made, to take measurements. That might take some time. There have also been problems on a number of occasions in relation to how the measurements have been taken and whether they have been made accurately. There has been a fair bit of toing-and-froing in relation to that.
One of the big problems is that the measurements are invariably taken some minutes, and possibly over an hour, after the initial complaint is made. That is not a satisfactory situation for the complainant, and it is certainly not a satisfactory situation for the motor sport concerned. They really do not know what they need to do to comply with the requirements. It seems that there are very few real guidelines as to exactly what requirements they have to comply with. They are in a very difficult position when it comes to taking proper measures to modify their vehicles so that they satisfy the requirements. In many instances, they tend to be in a catch-22 situation.
The ACT has an interesting history in relation to this problem. I need to make some brief mention of that in relation to this Bill. A number of sites currently used in the ACT are mentioned in the Bill. One is Sutton Park, which used to be the police driver training centre and which is now a transport training centre. It is hired out to other groups on occasions. The Fairbairn Park site is used by a lot of people for go-karting. Even young people down to the age of seven use it. Motorcycle racing and certain other motor sports are conducted there, and the drag-racing is held near the RAAF base at Fairbairn.
When it was mooted back in 1989 - by Paul Whalan, initially, as Minister for Sport, then by me and then by Mr Collaery in the Alliance Government - that the Sutton Park driver training site be upgraded to include a major raceway, the protest groups became very vocal. A number of protests came specifically from the Ridgeway, and, interestingly enough, at that stage, from people at Oaks Estate in the Australian Capital Territory, who also had a natural concern that there might be a fair amount of noise coming from there. It then became a driver training establishment again. A lot of the protest groups petered out, and there were certainly no more complaints from Oaks Estate. It is interesting that Oaks Estate is just 1.1 kilometres from the motor activities at Fairbairn Park and Sutton.
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