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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4308 ..

MR DE DOMENICO: I thank Ms Horodny for her question. Mr Speaker, I do not know whether I can assume anything in terms of what the Assembly is likely to do to legislation that is coming before us, I think, next Thursday or some other day. If the Assembly passes the legislation this week or next week, the answer to your question is no. The truck parks will not be ready before the legislation is passed if we pass the legislation next week. If we do not pass the legislation next week, what guarantee I can give as to when those things will be ready depends on the result of that tender process. I do not understand the question. The Assembly is going to be legislating, hopefully, next week. If not, I do not know how to answer your question.

MS HORODNY: May I reiterate the question? If the legislation is passed next week, do you make a commitment in this Assembly to have those truck parking facilities up and running so that the trucks which will be displaced from residential areas have somewhere to park? That is what I am asking.

MR SPEAKER: This is getting very close to being a hypothetical question.

MR DE DOMENICO: It is very hypothetical. The best advice available to me is that to provide secure truck parking on bitumen for about 150 trucks will cost from $6m to $8m. I cannot give this Assembly - nor can anybody else - an assurance about what timetable is likely to occur for people outside this place to put in for a tender process and then build that truck park, in either Hume or Mitchell, to the cost of $6m or $8m. I cannot give an assurance as to the exact date of when that is going to be ready. The answer to your supplementary question, Ms Horodny, is no, I cannot give you an assurance.

Mrs Carnell: So Ms Horodny is telling us that she does not want us to legislate now.

MR DE DOMENICO: I do not know what she is telling us, Mrs Carnell. All I can say is that I hope the Assembly, either this week or next week, sees the benefit of the 18-month community consultation process which has taken place and which has resulted in a quasi-unanimous decision on some guidelines.

Mr Berry: A quasi-unanimous decision?

MR DE DOMENICO: I am saying "quasi-unanimous" because people opposite might try to move a no-confidence motion against me for misleading the Assembly if I say "a totally unanimous decision". It was a nearly unanimous decision, Mr Speaker. I know that my command of the English language leaves a lot to be desired. It is not as good as Mr Berry's, for example. Let me reiterate what I have said in case I have not been able to express myself correctly. Ms Horodny, we have gone to a tender process. It will take some months, Ms Horodny. We hope to pass legislation next week. As to whether the Assembly is going to pass it or not, I do not know. As to when the truck parks are going to be ready, I do not know, because it depends on how many people put in for the tender. I think I have answered the quasi-hypothetical question quite adequately.

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