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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 2824 ..

MR DE DOMENICO (continuing):

These are not my words, Mr Speaker; these are the words of the experts. There is another problem. Paragraph 4(b) of Ms Horodny's Bill has the effect of considering motor vehicle noise to be noise emitted from a premise. This does not address truck noise where a truck is parked on the street. So, Mr Speaker, all the Greens' proposal does is move the problem onto Canberra streets.

Two additional legal problems have been identified in the preliminary assessment of the Bill. Again I quote from the experts:

Federal legislation sets down design standards for motor vehicles, including noise emissions. The Federal Motor Vehicle Standards Act 1989 specifically precludes the ACT or any other jurisdiction having a requirement more stringent than that Act.

It goes on and on; but I am running out of time, Mr Speaker. What I need to say is this: Before Ms Horodny comes into this place and makes public statements about how good she is, how bad everybody else is, and how the Greens have this incredible capacity to tell us what we all do not know, including the experts, let her do her homework first. Let her come to me and ask me for some advice. If she does not want to come to me, let her go to the experts to ask for advice; but how dare she come into this place, how dare she go public and say that the only people that are doing anything about this are the Greens. That is not so.

The proposal that this Government will put forward to this Assembly has taken a year of consultation with the experts. It will be up to this Assembly, of course, to accept or reject those proposals; but Ms Horodny should tell the truth, and the whole truth, in press releases and in other places, instead of saying, for example, that the proposals are so weak that they were criticised by everybody except truck drivers. I do not consider Mr Bob Sutherland from the Weston Creek Community Council, people from the Transport Workers Union and people from the community all to be truck drivers. So, with respect, what Ms Horodny should do before she comes into this place and makes such statements is to ask the experts what exactly has gone on. She should be very careful also when she does present Bills in this place.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. I would remind members that standing order 59 states that a member may not anticipate the discussion of any subject which appears on the notice paper.

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