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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 1761 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

The Government's approach through this Bill, I think, is comprehensive and proactive. I look forward to the committee's report when it comes back at the end of September. Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Hargreaves for his agreement. I will now move an amendment to his motion to put it in such form that the Assembly can refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Urban Services so that it can take into consideration what Mr Hargreaves has suggested and report back to the Assembly at a suitable time. I move:

Paragraph (1), omit all words after "that", substitute the following words:

"the Standing Committee on Urban Services inquire into and report on existing petrol sites policy with particular reference to:

(1) the need for requirements on the owners of petrol station site leases, upon vacation of site, to restore the site to as close to original condition as possible, with regard to the removal of contaminants in the soil caused by leakage from fuel storage tanks and the removal of buildings and fittings no longer required at their own expense;

(2) the need for the restoration to meet standards imposed by the Commissioner for the Environment;

(3) a requirement for future leases to include provision for restoration as a term of the lease;

(4) requirements on existing lease holders to prepare environment restoration plans and submit them to the Commissioner for the Environment for approval;

(5) the need to establish a financial penalty (based on restoration at public expense and recovery from the lessee) for defaulters, together with significant fines for non-restoration;

(6) the possible application of any measures to all existing and new petrol station leases.".

MS TUCKER (12.24): I have an amendment to Mr Smyth's amendment to Mr Hargreaves's motion. To enable members to see where we are up to, "revised" appears at the top of that amendment. Basically, we are inserting our original amendment into Mr Smyth's amendment for referral to the Urban Services Committee. Our amendment is there to make the point that often we would prefer to see these sites remain as petrol sites, if possible. Quite often they are a very important part of a local shopping centre's identity and, in fact, viability. For that reason, we would want to see measures taken, if possible, to maintain these sites as petrol stations. Also, there is the whole issue of not wanting petrol distribution to be completely taken over by a major oil company. Obviously it is good for diversity in the marketplace to have other players.

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