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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4751 ..

MR DE DOMENICO (continuing):

I present the supplementary explanatory memorandum to the Bill. Subclause 2(1) of the Motor Traffic (Amendment) Bill (No. 4) states:

Sections 1, 2 and 3 [of the Bill] commence on the day on which this Act is notified in the Gazette.

That means that we have 12 months to get the truck parking facilities up and running. In other words, it gives us time to provide the facilities within 12 months of gazettal. The amendment changes six months in the current Bill to 12 months.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 3 to 9, by leave, taken together, and agreed to.

Clause 10

MS HORODNY (6.08), by leave: I move:

Page 3, lines 26 and 27, proposed subsection 150F(1) (definition of "heavy vehicle", paragraph (a)), omit "7.5 metres in length and which has a GVM exceeding 4.5", substitute "6 metres in length or which has a GVM exceeding 3.75".

Page 3, line 32, proposed subsection 150F(1) (definition of "stock truck", paragraph (a)), omit "4.5", substitute "3.75".

These amendments, and a few of the other amendments I will be moving later, address what we believe is a problem in the definition of "heavy vehicle" and thus affect which vehicles will be subject to the new rules. The new rules Mr De Domenico released in May did not clearly define what is a heavy vehicle. However, the rules define what is a small commercial vehicle, and that is a vehicle less than six metres long, less than 2.6 metres high, and having a gross vehicle mass of less than 3.75 tonnes. The rules provide special concessions for these types of vehicles. It would, therefore, be reasonable to assume that all vehicles bigger than this would be subject to the rules. However, in the Bill we find that there is a gap between small commercial vehicles and what it defines as a heavy vehicle, which it states is more than 7.5 metres long, with a gross vehicle mass of more than 4.5 tonnes. We want some consistency in the legislation, so that all trucks, other than small commercial vehicles, will be covered. We have thus proposed the first amendment, which in effect matches the definition of a commercial vehicle in the new section 150J.

It is important to note that in our definition of a heavy vehicle we have deliberately used "or" rather than "and". By using "and", the Government has said that a truck would have to exceed all the specified dimensions to be classed as a heavy vehicle. For example, if a truck were less than 7.5 metres long but over 4.5 tonnes, it would not be regarded as a heavy vehicle. We believe that it is better to use the word "or". If a truck exceeds any of the dimensions that are specified it will then be classed as a heavy vehicle.

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