Page 2533 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
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(g) take other actions needed to protect and facilitate live entertainment venues;
(h) release an action plan for live entertainment by 31 October 2019 that commits to points (a) to (g) above;
(i) deliver the first stage of this action plan, including consultation on possible areas and precincts, by 31 July 2020; and
(j) update the Assembly and community on progress by 31 July 2020.”.
Clearly, the Greens strongly support Mr Parton’s motion, and we will be voting for it. We do not really need to say that, considering that we have some early drafts of a similar motion of our own to be moved later in August. I do not have a huge number of PMB slots, so I am very pleased that Mr Parton has managed to move this motion, because it is a good motion.
I agree with pretty much everything that he said in his speech, too. There has been a decade of inaction; it needs to stop. One of the nicest moments in my political career was a couple of weeks ago, with the Activism exhibition at CMAG. The truck that was outside today, the Soul Defender truck—I had no idea this would be happening—turned up, and it was projecting on the side of the Assembly the days, minutes and hours since the motion that I moved back in 2009 establishing an inquiry into this issue.
The disappointing thing is that this was around 10 years ago—a bit more than 10 years ago, as it was earlier in the year. As Mr Parton said, and as MusicACT’s website is counting down, no action has happened yet, and I very much hope that this might finally be the piece of work which leads to real action.
The problem is that current noise rules limit venues to very low noise levels as soon as someone makes a complaint. As long as venues and residents are well separated, that is fine, because there will be no complaints. The residents will be asleep in their beds and everyone will be happy. But Canberra is growing and changing, and that is no longer the case. People are moving into our commercial areas.
I would like to make it clear that this is not just an issue for the inner north area. Looking at my electorate, in Woden, there are places—admittedly, some of them have died off for other reasons—which could not be restarted now because of the residential development around them. This is not just about complaints being made by a few people in Braddon. I will list a few places; admittedly, most of them are on this side of town: the Asylum, the Terrace Bar, Gypsy Bar, Toast, Transit Bar, and New Acton’s summer events.
When I was talking about Woden, I was particularly talking about the Contented Soul. I must admit that I spent some time in the past being quite contented there, but it could not happen anymore, with the redevelopment of the Alexander—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members do understand what I mean about oversharing, don’t they?
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