Page 722 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 1990
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legal responsibility for the removal and the cost of removal of this asbestos rests ultimately with the Federal Government. Despite attempts to get this Federal Labor Government to pay for the cost of the removal of the asbestos, nothing has happened.
Mr Berry: At the next Premiers Conference we will see how good your Chief Minister is.
MR STEFANIAK: I point out to you, Mr Berry, and indeed to Mrs Grassby, that your Government, when you were in power, did very little to force your Federal colleagues to foot the bill. I can remember Mrs Grassby saying in answer to a question I asked, "First of all we'll be nice to them, ask nicely first, and then maybe we might get tough". In the seven months your Government was in it showed very little inkling that it was ever going to get tough with the Federal Government.
Mr Duby has indicated to me that not only will this Government fix up the asbestos in Canberra houses as soon as possible so that Canberra citizens can be asbestos free, but this Government will push the Federal Government to do what they legally and morally should have done from the word go, and that is foot the total cost of the removal of this asbestos.
MR JENSEN (12.08): Mr Speaker, I did not propose to speak on this particular issue this morning.
Mrs Grassby: Why are you?
MR JENSEN: I will tell you, Mrs Grassby, if you are patient; because I think the matter has been quite well covered by my colleagues Mr Duby, Mrs Nolan and Mr Stefaniak. However, the sheer hypocrisy of the issues raised by Mr Berry has forced me to rise on this occasion to speak in particular on the role of the Federal members in the debate on asbestos, especially those who are seeking election - in the case of one. We remember that this is the first time that particular member has faced the people. The other is seeking re-election.
Once again, I think it is important to remind the people of the ACT, those people who are voting this weekend, where their two members - and those before them - have been in relation to this very important issue. The responsibility for the removal of asbestos within the ACT should be sheeted home to the Federal Government. The Federal Government should pay for it, not the taxpayers and the ratepayers of the ACT, because it was during a period of Federal Government control that the decision was made to allow asbestos, one of the most dangerous - - -
Mr Duby: Long after it was banned in New South Wales.
MR JENSEN: That is correct. This was long after it was banned in New South Wales and long after it was
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