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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4747 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

To make this Bill work for the trucking industry, for residents, and for future truck parking businesses, there must be one rule for all trucks and the rule must be that all large trucks are banned from the suburbs. We accept that there will be extra costs for truck drivers; but, if all truck operators are paying the same amount, at least there will still be fair competition between truck operators. At present, it is the neighbours of truck operators who are bearing the cost, and this situation is clearly unacceptable. The trucking industry needs to recognise this and adjust its operations accordingly.

The Greens will be voting for Mr De Domenico's Bill in principle, even though we know that it has many flaws. However, if it succeeds in getting some trucks out of the suburbs and gets other truck operators, hopefully, to be more considerate to their neighbours, it will at least be a partial success. I will be moving a series of amendments to tighten up the Bill, and I look forward to members' support for these amendments.

MR MOORE (5.53): I am sure you will be moving them; the question is how much support you will get, Ms Horodny. Mr Speaker, I rise to support the Bill in principle, and I indicate that I will be one of the people - perhaps the only one - supporting most of the amendments Ms Horodny is putting up. The difficulty I have with this legislation, Mr Speaker, is that it just does not go far enough. I think that is the issue Ms Horodny raises. It introduces a much less rigorous ban regime than it could have done; but the difficulty is that if the Bill is now adjourned, or if it is defeated and does not come into force, there will be no movement at all on this. So I think it is preferable to accept what I consider to be a very weak Bill rather than have nothing.

The Bill is largely focused on protecting residents, but we also have to keep in mind the alternatives for truck drivers. In fairness to the truck drivers, the community's removal of trucks by this legislation and, hopefully, a stronger piece of legislation in the future, should be accompanied by arrangements to provide for truck parks, and these should not be funded by the community. Land use arrangements, I think, and fast-tracking of Government facilitation of such developments is certainly appropriate, so I think they are important moves. The Minister has indicated that he has been doing some work on this, and I will be interested to hear his reply as to where that is up to.

It seems to me that, at best, the Government has struggled to get even these arrangements in order. I think it is a fairly half-hearted and disorganised approach. I realise that a great deal of work went into background committee consultation, and I am not criticising that part of it. I am now being critical of getting this together. I believe that it has almost been a case where the Minister saw the writing on the wall when other members of the Assembly indicated that they would have to force the Government to guarantee the creation of a truck park. That is a difficult thing for other members of the Assembly to do, but I think the picture was clear. The Minister saw the writing on the wall, and that is when we saw some action.

Provisions for regulating truck parks have to be put in place so that operators cannot exploit truck owners, who would wind up being a captive market. We need to ensure that the operation of truck parks does not become a monopoly but, rather, encourages competition. If that is not possible, they would need to have price regulation. My method of encouraging the Minister is to ensure that there is competition. I think it is appropriate to ensure that those facilities begin as soon as possible.

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