Page 3935 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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MR BERRY: No, you are wrong, as usual, Mr De Domenico. The commission - - -
Mr De Domenico: It is 5 per cent, is it?
MR BERRY: No, I am sorry; the commission that is collected by the TAB is 15 per cent. Get your figures right. I repeat that it is an instrumentality of the ACT Government. It is not anticipated that it will have any effect on the market in the ACT.
Noise Pollution
MS SZUTY: Madam Speaker, my question without notice is to the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning, Mr Wood. On Sunday, 14 November, an officer of the ACT Government was seen sitting on the road reserve of The Ridgeway in Yarrowlumla Shire with what seemed to be a measuring device. On the same day go-kart racing was taking place at the go-kart racing facility at Fairbairn. Can the Minister inform the Assembly as to the cost of monitoring the go-kart racing, who the beneficiaries of such measurements are, and how often the Government has officers working on Sundays to conduct this monitoring?
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, quite a lot of time and, hence, money has been spent monitoring sound that emanates from the raceways at Fairbairn Park and the adjacent ex-police driver training centre, Sutton Road, I think we call it now. We have spent a lot of time and money attending to that noise as we grapple with the very difficult problem of providing for the legitimate interests of car racing enthusiasts while enforcing the law and protecting the interests of people, not in the ACT but in New South Wales. The law in the ACT applies whether the residents affected are in this Territory or beyond its boundaries. I cannot give you the precise details, Ms Szuty, but it would be a very substantial cost. There is a voluminous load of files on the matter as we seek to resolve that issue.
Mr Kaine: The previous Minister had the same problem.
MR WOOD: Did you? Why did you not fix it?
Mr Kaine: I tried. Why have you not fixed it? You have had three times as long as I had.
MR WOOD: To fix it we require a new site for raceways. That is the simple answer. We are some way down the track towards doing that. There have been a few blind alleys and a few dead ends in that track. I think it is entirely proper that we send our pollution control people into New South Wales to check sound levels. I would send them down the Murrumbidgee to check the flow of the river outside Canberra. It is entirely proper that we do that and I have no difficulty with it. They have been there quite often.
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