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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Thursday, 19 August 2004) . . Page.. 3950 ..

can really let their hair down, and that is exactly what our youth must be allowed to do—to burn off all that energy and to exercise their creative minds to the extreme, but in safe and supervised environments, safe for them and safe for the general public. A facility at Majura, with safe track arrangements and trained supervisors, with canteen, club and recreational facilities, would be great for our youth and would go a long way to minimising juvenile bad behaviour on our streets.

Five weeks ago it was brought to my attention that at Point Hut Crossing there had been on the previous weekend extensive illegal drag racing down along the stretches and across the weir. Picnic facilities in the area had been vandalised; beer cans were lying all over the place; there had been burnouts; and there was the wreck of a car as well. Quite extreme speeds by those kids were observed in that area.

Mr Speaker, by having a safe place for our kids to go—a facility like this would at least provide that secondary role—we would perhaps at least minimise that behaviour. We’ll never eradicate that sort of behaviour, but we would minimise that sort of behaviour. I’m not drawing a long bow when I say that the development of a motor sport complex at Majura would benefit Canberra youth, parents, business, tourism, motor sport enthusiasts and community safety.

I’d again like to say that I do support Mr Stefaniak’s proposal and believe it to be advantageous to all for the government to honour its promise to Canberra and the motor sport community and develop the site at Majura without delay. Mr Quinlan raises a good point about noise abatement at Majura, but I think we’re fairly confident that the noise problem, because of the flight pattern, is not a major obstacle—not the major obstacle that Mr Quinlan paints.

Mr Speaker, what we’re saying here to the government is this: make the commitment and stop making the excuse that the government’s been making today. For the good of sport, business and tourism, I call upon the government to commit in very concrete terms to building a dragway, not to break the promises previously made.

Government members interjecting—

MR PRATT: Mr Stefaniak, would you settle down and would you guys stop exploiting him.

MR SPEAKER: Order members! Would you like to direct your comments through the chair.

MR PRATT: Mr Speaker, I call upon the government to commit in very concrete terms to building a dragway, to not break the promises that they have previously made and to stick with that commitment. This commitment, were they to make it, would be most welcomed by youth and social workers. We on this side of the house have a will. We will commit to building that dragway, with motor sport complexes, and we will ensure that the youth of Canberra are given appropriate access to that facility for recreational issues as well as those for which the dragway is primarily built.

MS TUCKER (4.26): I’ll just make a very brief contribution. I wasn’t going to contribute, but I just heard Mr Pratt then. Just for the interest of members, and certainly

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