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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1254 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

(d) the residential land use policies in the Territory Plan to be amended to only allow truck parking as a controlled activity subject to public notification and third party appeal;

(e) truck parking spaces must be provided behind the building line and more than 1.5 metres from side and rear boundaries;

(f) operating hours for trucks entering and leaving residential leases to be 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and

(g) there will be no concessions from these rules for existing operators; and

(2) facilitate the establishment of truck parking areas in the industrial and commercial areas of Canberra so that truck operators have alternative parking options to parking their trucks at home.

Mr Speaker, the Greens have put forward this motion on the control of truck parking in residential areas because it has become quite clear to us that the Government has not been able to address this issue adequately, despite spending a year trying to do it. It is quite clear what residents want. They do not want to live next to big, noisy and smelly trucks that block their streets, rip up their footpaths, endanger their children and disturb their sleep. The issue is very simple.

We have received numerous letters and phone calls from constituents who are complaining about large trucks in their streets and who are being forced to deal with insensitive and sometimes intimidating truck drivers. For every truck parked in a residential area there are at least eight neighbours immediately affected, and many more neighbours, up and down the street, have to put up with trucks coming and going. The numbers are clearly stacked against trucks. It is commonly accepted that residents have a right to live in peace and quiet within their homes, yet the current situation favours truck drivers to the detriment of the neighbourhood.

What has the Government given to residents in their new rules on truck parking? We have very little change from the status quo. We have bans on a very limited range of trucks that are unlikely to be found in residential areas anyway. We have neighbours still being disturbed from 5.30 in the morning and up until 12 o'clock at night. We have truck operators being urged to minimise vehicle noise, with no legal backup for neighbours to object to those truck operators who act irresponsibly. We have the Registrar of Motor Vehicles being required to assess the adequacy of landscaping, fencing and garaging arrangements. These are things which the registrar is not qualified to assess, as they are, more appropriately, planning issues. Despite the much vaunted public consultation process, the outcome is a strange alliance between the Liberal Government and the Transport Workers Union. The TWU has got all that it wanted and the residents nothing.

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