Page 4377 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 30 November 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
during which they can be operated. It is that simple. All of us would agree that there should be restrictions. What we need to address is the times that the restrictions should apply and to what size vehicle. I suggest that it is not all that hard to do. A few weeks, a few months, should do it.
I am informed that solutions are coming before the end of the year. If so, that would be excellent. I do not think the solution is to say that only the biggest trucks cannot do it. An eight tonner, as an example, is a heavy vehicle. It still breaks up the roads. All taxpayers have to pay for these things. Residential areas are not designed for them. This is an ongoing problem that concerns a lot of people throughout Canberra. It has been suggested that there are some 600 heavy vehicles being parked and operated in residential areas around Canberra. That is an enormous number of vehicles in a council-size area.
The Minister mentioned at one time that there was one complaint coming in every week. That is a remarkably high level of complaints. I think we would all agree that many people do not voice their complaint because of fear of reprisals, because of fear of retaliation. I know of one case where a truck driver had a house and looked after the place very well. He had a very nice front lawn, nice shrubs, flowers, and other things. He parked his truck on the neighbour's front lawn, believe it or not. It was a big truck. It put ridges in the earth - it was very heavy - and the neighbour mentioned it. One could call it a complaint, but the idea is to talk to somebody about these things. They mentioned this and they got the retaliation. This person, when the neighbour was out, put a hose through the bathroom window and turned it on. He also did his best to jam the front door lock, threw things on the front lawn, made a tremendous noise, and made a number of personal accusations and so on. The police were called. So, I can understand that many people will not voice their concerns. There have been cases in Canberra where people have voiced their concerns. They have done the right thing, not just gone straight along to complain to the authorities.
What about talking to our neighbours? What about accepting responsibility for our own community? We should not run off to the government department to look after us. I agree; try to work it out ourselves. People have done this and, unfortunately, they have found that they have had problems as a result because some people are unreasonable; certainly not all people, but some people. We need to do something about this, and to do it rapidly. We need to make sure, though, that the times in which trucks are allowed in residential areas are reasonable and that the size of the truck is not too large. Leaving it at an unreasonable time and too large trucks will only exacerbate the problem.
MR LAMONT (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Housing and Community Services, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (4.11): I thank Ms Szuty for the opportunity to rise to speak about this very important matter and the information supplied by Mr Stevenson in his dissertation, which I think would probably more correctly have been entitled "A speech to an MPI that said 'The failure of the ACT Government to take full account of the needs of Canberra's neighbours'", as opposed to the substance of the MPI, which is the neighbourhoods issue. I reject both assertions, whether construed in the narrow form of the comments made by Mr Stevenson or in the broader sense of the comments made by Ms Szuty.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .