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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4764 ..

Mr Moore: You take the responsibility. You voted for it. We will be the ones pointing the finger.

MR BERRY: You are not taking a reasonable position in all of this, Michael. You should have compassion for a lot of people and the families of the people who are going to have to go through a major change in their lives as a result of these changes.

MR MOORE (7.02): What nonsense about a lack of compassion! Compassion goes two ways - to the residents as well as to the drivers. On almost all the issues I have dealt with during the last eight years in the Assembly there have been very rare occasions when I have been conscious of a lack of compassion on the part of any member. Mr Berry talked about a petrol engine International. It is very unusual to have a petrol-driven truck over 4.5 tonnes. The vast majority in that category are diesels. I am not saying that they do not exist, but they are very unusual.

Mr Hird: Do you drive a truck, Michael? Do you have a licence to drive a truck?

MR MOORE: Indeed, I have driven many trucks, including semitrailers. I still have a licence for them. I will take you for a drive one day, Mr Hird, if you are lucky. I have spent quite a time driving trucks in the city doing deliveries. I am very conscious of just what this is about. It was 20 years ago, but I have certainly done it. Mr Berry described one of the trucks that I used to drive.

This is not an issue about just compassion or non-compassion. It is about ensuring increasingly strong protection of the environment and protection of the amenity in our city. I gave the example of Mr Wood's dog laws. The whole idea is to protect people and to improve standards in society.

In response to Mr Berry's comments, I would have a great lack of compassion if I were woken up at 5.30 in the morning with a diesel engine running for five minutes outside my bedroom window. I might be able to put up with it for the first few nights, maybe even for a week or two; but my compassion and sympathy would go rapidly downhill. I imagine that the same would be true of pretty well all members of this Assembly.

Mr Speaker, the reason I supported this Bill in principle was that I accept that it is a first step. The only people it is really going to affect, as I see it, are those who have a truck with a stock crate on it or a big pantechnicon. I hope it does go further than that.

Mr Berry: One day it might.

MR MOORE: It certainly includes those. It does go a bit further than that, although I do not think it goes much further than that. I hear Mr Berry interject, "One day it might". The reason I will continue to support the Bill as a whole is that, at the very least, it is a first step; but that is all it is.

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