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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4757 ..

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (6.31): Mr Moore chooses to suggest that the desire to compromise and to approach this issue in the light of historic events suggests some lack of backbone. I really have to put this situation in some perspective from that point of view. The situation we are in is one where, perhaps even before Mr Moore was a member of this place - in fact, I am certain, before Mr Moore was a member of this place - for years and years, there has been an administration of residential leases which in many respects has left a lot to be desired and which has allowed some practices to grow up and to become part of the fabric of this community which, if we all had a blank sheet of paper and all our wishes could come true, we would not have. Unfortunately, what we are dealing with is an attempt to redress an unsatisfactory situation that has grown up. In redressing that situation, we have to balance the rights of people who have legitimate concerns about their amenity against the interests of people who have legitimate concerns about their business undertakings or their employment undertakings which involve them driving trucks.

I understand that Mr Moore would like to wave the magic wand and have no more trucks in residential areas. Quite frankly, if I were sitting down with a blank piece of paper to design Canberra from scratch, I would probably do the same thing, Mr Moore. Unfortunately, that is not the situation we are in. We are in a situation where the realities of life in the transport industry are increasingly moving towards owner-drivers who have a very large investment in a vehicle, who are very interested in the security of their investment, and who in the past have been allowed by the Department of Territories - - -

Mr Berry: The Department of the Interior, even.

MR WHITECROSS: The Department of the Interior probably as well, and other past regulators - to establish themselves in the industry on a particular basis. We obviously have to come to some compromises here. I have on a number of occasions lived in areas where there were truck drivers operating in the street in which I lived. Some of those truck drivers I was very unhappy about, and I was very unhappy that the police seemed to take so little interest in the hazard caused by truck drivers parking on the street in a way which I thought severely obstructed traffic. That is an issue which, hopefully, will be addressed by the national road rules in due course.

I have also encountered operators parking in residential areas who caused no disruption to anyone in the street; I knew lots of people in the street and nobody complained.

Ms Horodny: People are too scared to complain.

MR WHITECROSS: In redressing the balance, there is no point in going into a situation where we inconvenience lots of people when there is no real reason for them to be inconvenienced. It is simply not good enough for Ms Horodny or Mr Moore to make a blanket statement that any resident who says that they have no complaints about a truck operator somewhere in their street is lying, which is what they want to say. They want to say, "They are lying. They are upset; it is just that they do not want to say". I do not think that is satisfactory.

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