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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 202 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

On 13 December last year I announced the findings of the expert group, and affected Watson residents were also advised of the findings the same day. This clean bill of health is, I think, an excellent result for Watson residents. I believe that the process whereby the community was represented and through their representation participated in the resolution of the issues was successful and demonstrates the value of conducting such exercises in an open way. I appreciate the tolerance and continuing understanding of residents during this long period. I also want to thank members of the expert group for their efforts.

The other document I wish to table, Mr Speaker, is the Government's contaminated sites discussion paper. In September I tabled the Government's strategic plan for contaminated sites management, which foreshadowed a discussion paper on contaminated sites management. The discussion paper was intended to canvass community views on issues relating to management and legislative control of contaminated sites. I am sure members would accept that the Government is not the first to address the issue of management of contaminated sites, and the approach adopted by this Government is consistent with similar approaches in Western Australia and South Australia, and by our predecessor in the ACT.

One of the options open to the Government is to incorporate contaminated sites legislation into the proposed Environment Protection Bill which should come to this Assembly later this session. The Environment Protection Bill, which is designed to regulate activities which have the potential to cause environmental harm, including land contamination, will consolidate several Acts relating to air, ozone, noise, water and pesticides. Legislation for the control of contaminated sites will need to address the following issues in addition to those currently covered in the Environment Protection Bill: Identifying potentially contaminated land; assessment and, where necessary, remediation of contaminated land; auditing and certification of the status of land after investigation or remediation; recovery of costs of assessment and remediation from a range of parties; establishment of a contaminated sites register; availability of information to the public; and control of future use of contaminated land. Depending on the option adopted by the Government after the public consultation process, any subordinate legislation and/or policy guidelines will need to address standards and protocols - for example, for assessing whether a site is a risk to human health or the environment, and for determining whether restrictions should be placed on future use of the site. The period for public consultation commences with the release of the paper and will end on 18 April 1997. I believe that this will allow ample time for interested parties to comment on the issues raised in the discussion paper.

I hope, Mr Speaker, that these documents will assist the community in coming to a resolution of what has been, for the last two or three years, a very pressing issue for some householders in the Territory. They should assure the whole community that protocols for managing contaminated sites issues of whatever kind might arise in the future are available and will result in a fair degree of community consensus that these issues are dealt with in the best possible way. I thank members of the Planning and Environment Committee for their report, which I believe was a helpful contribution towards moving this issue on to the next stage of resolving those contentious issues.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

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