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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 2632 ..
MR SPEAKER: Mr Rugendyke, standing order 140 reads:
Every amendment must be relevant to the question which it is proposed to amend.
Your amendments are out of order because they broaden the scope to a much greater extent than I believe the existing motion would allow. However, there are two options for the Assembly, as I am conscious of the fact that a couple of members of the Assembly have already made mention of your foreshadowed amendments. Mr Rugendyke, you can at some time in the future put a substantive motion on the notice paper or the Assembly can, if it wishes, suggest that we put aside standing order 140 in this matter and allow your amendments to come forward now. It is up to the Assembly. I just need a motion on that point. What is the wish of the Assembly?
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would allow Mr Rugendyke's amendments to be considered.
MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education) (12.31): I will be very brief, Mr Speaker. The government is quite happy with Mr Rugendyke's first amendment. The second one might be a bit of a problem simply because the motion as it currently stands talks about leasing a site to the dragway at full market value. Whilst the dragway is a commercial concern, the vast majority of motor sport in the territory is not a commercial concern. It is like any other amateur sport.
Clearly, if a suitable permanent site for motor racing generally were to be found, some consideration would need to be given to those amateur clubs, just like it is given to any other amateur sporting group where the government actually kicks in with some financial assistance. I think that the second amendment might well lump in motor sport generally with what is, at the end of the day, a commercial operation.
The bureau has, as Mr Rugendyke said, done some extensive studies on eliminating noise impacts. Whilst we can certainly minimise a lot of the noise impacts, I do not know whether we could completely eliminate them if we lumped in all of the motor sports and that, again, might be a bit of a problem.
The government is quite happy to support the first amendment. It can see no drama at all arising if other representatives of motor racing are included in terms of looking for a site for drag-racing. I think that it would be important if it were a different site from where motor sport generally might be looking. But we do see a few problems with lumping in all of motor sport, especially as most of the bodies are amateur; so we would not support Mr Rugendyke's second amendment. I share his aims and appreciate where his heart lies in terms of this matter, but I think it might cause undue problems if that amendment were to get up.
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