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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3401 ..

MRS BURKE (continuing):

As the newest member in this Assembly, and one who has had only a couple of months to hear the arguments and get across the issue, I am fast realising that planning always will have winners and losers. There will always be decisions that will cause upset and dissatisfaction to some, even making some of us quite unpopular.

As I have said, I know how passionate some people are about this issue. It is good that we have in our community people such as these who contribute in a very lively, forceful and energetic way. I respect your position and your point of view.

Mr Speaker, as you know-and this is something those in the gallery might take into consideration-we have to respect the points of view of many people, and at the end of the day are elected to represent many people with many different viewpoints in Canberra, an interesting challenge indeed. We must therefore listen to all sides and, based upon what we hear, must make a balanced decision for the good of the whole of the Canberra community.

I will therefore be supporting the eastern route, a practical and sensible solution for Canberra.

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Business, Tourism and the Arts and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (5.45): Mr Speaker, the government has made it quite clear that we will be supporting the eastern route. We do so on the basis of a large amount of work that has been done over 30-odd years but especially over the last five or six years.

Many arguments have been for and against both proposals. I would like to reiterate just a few on whether the eastern route is better than the western route for noise. The advice I have is that the eastern route will have some impact on recreational users of the O'Connor hills and the Bruce Ridge, but the effects on the residential areas of Lyneham, O'Connor and Turner will be minimal, owing to a large separation.

With the western route, there will a minor increase in noise for recreational users of the O'Connor hills and Bruce Ridge, but there will be a significant noise increase in residential areas in East Kaleen, particularly in Shannon Circuit, Pambula Street, Skardon Street and Delegate Street. It is sad that Mr Stanhope would stand and say that there should be passion about this issue but then be so dismissive as to say that the impact on Kaleen of the western route is a furphy. It is just not so.

We have heard that length and travel time are issues. The eastern route is 5.1 kilometres; the western route, 4.8. At 80 kilometres an hour, the difference in travelling time is 14 seconds.

There are visual impacts. The eastern route will have no significant visual impacts on adjacent residential areas or on the AIS and the Bruce Stadium. It will, however, have significant impact when viewed from O'Connor hills and Bruce Ridge. But the western route will have significant visual impacts for the residents of Kaleen, Bruce and the AIS. So we have these competing arguments.

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