Page 2478 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 22 August 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
that these towers have to be put a little closer perhaps to residential areas than the 2G towers.
Other authorities have raised questions about the high frequency of this soft wave. Nevertheless, if the Australian standard says that a 3G tower with microwave transmission is quite safe to locate within 100 metres or so of houses, then that is an issue that has to be taken seriously. That is not my concern. My concern is about the consultation, the planning and the warning. I would like to talk about the Fadden-Macarthur tower that is being planned by Telstra on the 2.7 hectares of land rezoned by ACTPLA. The residents of Fihelly Street in Fadden have told me that only 19 residents, out of the hundreds in the vicinity of this site who perhaps should have been notified regarding the rezoning of this site, have been notified and their requests to extend the consultation period have been rejected.
I wrote to the minister on their behalf. My request to the minister was that, given that only a small number of the people likely to be affected either by the visual amenity issue or by other factors have had the chance to be consulted and given that people have not had the chance to make their voices heard, would the minister please arrange for ACTPLA to take steps to extend the consultation. Unfortunately, the minister advised that, in accordance with regulations, ACTPLA are well within their rights to proceed as they have. I would have been much more comforted if the minister had said, “I take your point, Mr Pratt, and I take the point raised here by the residents of Fadden. I have the power to step in and ask ACTPLA to step beyond those regulations and to put in a 30-day caveat.” Regrettably, that has not been the case.
The minister says that a draft network plan has been notified. That is fine, and I am sure that as a general notification that is useful, but I do make the point again. One would have thought that, in addition to promulgating a draft network plan to a range of suburbs about what Telstra’s and ACTPLA’s intentions are, the government, through its agencies, would have also directly notified the residents that live close to where the work is going to occur. Yes, the draft network plan has been promulgated, but not everybody can read a newspaper or pick up on how these notifications are carried out. One would think that the government would at least go to the front doors of the 100 or so residents living in close proximity to this 2.7 hectare site and say, “Look, folks, it is our intention to rezone that site to allow that site to be used by telcos to install communications towers. Do you have a problem with that? Would you like to talk to us about that?” That would have been a very important task to carry out, and in this case that has not occurred.
At a community meeting on 9 August this year in Tuggeranong, attended by my colleague Brendan Smyth and me, a large body of residents voiced their quite deep anger over the Macarthur-Fadden proposal. They were justifiably angry about the insufficient consultation, the nonexistent warning, the likely visible pollution affecting the residential area and what they saw to be—whether I agree with this or not is another matter—the far from satisfactory assurances that radiation issues had been addressed. All government agencies, the minister directly involved and all partnering commercial entities were invited to attend that meeting. The only authority that bothered to attend that meeting was Telstra. It was the only one of four or five. Its commercial partner, ACTPLA, did not attend. Actew did not attend. There was a government staffer there, but that was the total government presence.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .