Page 4701 - Week 15 - Thursday, 16 December 1993
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LEGAL AFFAIRS - STANDING COMMITTEE
Report on Traffic (Amendment) Bill (No. 2) 1992
MR HUMPHRIES (11.33): Madam Speaker, pursuant to order, I present report No. 3 of the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs entitled Traffic (Amendment) Bill (No. 2) 1992, together with a dissenting report and extracts from the minutes of proceedings. I move:
That the report be noted.
Madam Speaker, the Traffic (Amendment) Bill was a Bill that I introduced into the Assembly approximately a year ago, the object of which was to extend the existing ban in the Traffic Act on bicycles, skateboards, roller-skates and rollerblades to bus interchanges in the ACT. The committee decided that it would call for public submissions on that question when the issue was referred to the committee, and the committee in due course heard the views of the Council on the Ageing, the Youth Affairs Network of the ACT, the Cyclists Rights Action Group, Mr Pat Develin - a pharmacist - and representatives from the Department of Urban Services.
Madam Speaker, the views presented to the committee of the Assembly were fairly polarised. On the one hand, groups such as COTA and Mr Develin indicated that they felt that there were great dangers inherent in skateboarding taking place in public places such as shopping centres. They pointed out the hazard to elderly people in the community and to people with children. They recounted cases of injury to those people. They spoke about apprehension that injury might occur and the implications for things such as the social isolation of the elderly in our community. On the other hand, Madam Speaker, groups such as the Youth Affairs Network and, to a much lesser extent, the Cyclists Rights Action Group pointed out that young people ought to have the same rights as others in the community to use public places. They pointed out that skateboarding is a form of exercise. Members of the Department of Urban Services made it clear that there were considerable enforcement difficulties related to aspects of the Bill.
Madam Speaker, I think all people appearing before the committee agreed, to varying extents, that there was a problem also with the lack of facilities available to young people in the ACT to exercise their skills as skateboarders. The committee took the trouble to view the skateboard facilities on the edge of Lake Ginninderra in Belconnen and also to look at the site of the former skateboard facilities in Woden Valley at Phillip. We took some time to do so because we wanted to see what was available and how that impacted on the surrounding areas. The facilities at Belconnen are of a high order.
Mr Connolly: Did you try one again?
MR HUMPHRIES: I did not myself try one, Madam Speaker, but I am sure that my previous experience would have stood me in good stead if I had chosen to do so.
Mrs Carnell: You would have had to go to Sydney because there are no hospitals here.
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