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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 (Hansard) 16 May) . . Page.. 1387 ..

MS HORODNY (4.23): I would like to address this issue. Mr De Domenico, it does not seem to me that you have changed the status quo very much at all.

Mr De Domenico: That, surely, is your opinion, Ms Horodny.

MS HORODNY: It is my opinion. It is also the opinion of residents in the community who have been ringing me and writing to me asking for a better solution. I do not believe that this is a solution at all. You say that you have followed strictly the recommendations of the working group; but, again, I do not believe that that is the case at all.

Mr De Domenico: Were you there?

MS HORODNY: No, but I have spoken with people who are on that group and they have said that you have not taken on the recommendations of that committee. It seems that you are again leaving the issue to residents, and this has been the problem from the start. Instead of our community taking this issue on and we as legislators dealing with this problem once and for all, we are again throwing it out there to the community and saying, "Well, a neighbour can take it to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, et cetera, et cetera, and you should go and talk to your neighbours".

It is very difficult, Mr De Domenico. People try to live in a situation of harmony and peace with their neighbours. It is very difficult to approach someone who feels that they have a right, as they do at the moment, to park their trucks wherever they like on their blocks. Yes, you are saying that you want the trucks to come off the front of the streets and you want them parked in the driveways. In some cases that will mean that the truck will be parked closer to someone's bedroom. I do not think this is well considered at all. You think you are solving one problem by taking them off the streets, where they are a nuisance indeed; but you could be accentuating the problem for the neighbour whose bedroom happens to be next to the driveway.

As for this whole issue of time, you are saying that existing operators can continue from 5.30 am until midnight. Are you aware, Mr De Domenico, that if someone is having a noisy party after 10 o'clock at night neighbours can call in the police and the police can go in and ask those people to turn down their music or whatever other noisy activity? You cannot operate a drill or any other heavy machinery from your home after 10 o'clock at night, but you are saying that it is okay for truck drivers to enter and leave their premises right up until midnight, making as much noise as they like and presumably working on those trucks at midnight. It does not seem that you have solved that problem at all. Again, it is business as usual.

You say that we are not willing to make concessions to existing operators. If you were really interested in improving this situation, why are you allowing new operators to continue in this fashion? Why are you allowing new operators, new businesses, to operate under these rules? Why not say, at least, that new operators who do not currently have the benefit of this system that we have in the ACT have to move immediately to parking in industrial areas? I do not understand why you are allowing the situation just to go on and allowing more and more businesses to park their trucks in residential areas.

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