Page 6024 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 8 December 2010
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Mr Rattenbury has raised in relation to south Tralee. I again put the challenge to Mr Seselja that if he would like the support of the Assembly—I think we would all agree that Canberra airport is a key piece of infrastructure—he may want to consider making some changes to his amendment in order to achieve that support. I am sure other members would be happy to accommodate that because it appears from everyone’s contributions tonight to be a point on which we can all agree.
Finally, in relation to the matter of a curfew, I note that even raising that prospect today through Mr Rattenbury’s motion has brought about, I think, a fairly strong reaction from the tourism industry, from the Hotels Association, from the Canberra Business Council and from a range of other tourism organisations, and I share the concerns of those organisations in relation to a curfew. I do not think it would be a good outcome for Canberra airport or for Canberra and it would be devastating in the long term for our tourism industry.
So for those reasons I could not support those elements of Mr Rattenbury’s motion and I understand that the Chief Minister’s amendment that he will move at the conclusion of our discussion on Mr Seselja’s amendment will go to address those particular concerns.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (8.39): I will speak very briefly to Mr Seselja’s amendment. It is a very commonsense and logical amendment because the issue that we are actually discussing here, the issue that is of concern to the residents of Canberra, is noise abatement. So it is not necessarily regarding particular developments. This is about noise abatement and that is the key issue which Mr Seselja deals with. So it seems to me to be the most appropriate way of dealing with this issue for the longer term benefits of all Canberrans.
I particularly note the people of Gungahlin. At the moment there are noise abatement areas in some areas of Gungahlin, including the suburbs of Nicholls, Palmerston and Ngunnawal. But the newer areas of Gungahlin—places like Bonner, Forde, Harrison and Amaroo—are not included. So what Mr Seselja’s amendment seeks to do is to make sure that we cover the residential areas of Canberra for posterity, to make sure that, regardless of what happens with developments, regardless of what happens at the Canberra airport, regardless of what happens with freight hubs or particular operations that they carry out, expansion of the airport and so on, residents in our suburban areas, residents of Gungahlin and people elsewhere in Canberra, wherever they may be, be they in Tuggeranong, be they in the inner north or the inner south—in this case I think particularly for the members of Molonglo of my constituents in Gungahlin—will be provided with the assurance that they will have the appropriate legislation that provides noise abatement to them.
So I commend Mr Seselja’s amendment, which is common sense and deals with the solution to the problem rather than trying to deal with political expediency, as we have seen from Mr Rattenbury’s motion.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (8.41): I want to respond quickly to Mr Seselja’s amendment. The Greens will not be supporting his amendment. I want to comment briefly on the most extraordinary set of speeches we have just heard from the Liberal
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