Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 561 ..

Ms Horodny: Why do you not prove that they are not right?

MR HUMPHRIES: You say that they are not wrong. Let the Conservation Council explain why they issued an attachment that referred to the harmful effects of the burning of Delan and the production of cyanide by burning Delan, when this information related to incinerators which customarily operate at much lower temperatures than the one we have at Mitchell. How do they explain that? They have made an error and they should have come clean on that at the outset, not tried to find some way of justifying what was a mistake on their part. Ms Horodny asks me how I know the incinerator burns constantly at the necessary temperature. Obviously, in the very short time that the Conservation Council and the other organisations have given me to respond to this issue, I cannot supply that information. I will take that on notice.

The emission standards which the Totalcare facility at Mitchell has to comply with are the same as those for all other emission producing bodies and individuals in the ACT. They are contained within existing environmental standards. There are no lower standards applied to the Mitchell incinerator. Of course, under the Environment Protection Act which is now being developed by the Government, there will be a necessity for Totalcare to obtain an authorisation to be able to conduct that activity in the future, and they will have to satisfy certain emission standards in that process. That may be part of a national process of setting emission standards.

Ms Horodny asked about the testing regime. As I indicated before Ms Horodny came down here this afternoon, the incinerator is tested for dioxins on a random basis. Dioxin production was tested for at the beginning of this year and was tested for at random points throughout 1996. I cannot tell her the exact dates. If she is interested in the exact dates, I will take that on notice and find out. Mr Speaker, I reaffirm that these are the sorts of questions that should have been asked by the Conservation Council before this irresponsible press release went out, not now and not here in the Assembly after the release has already done its damage.

MS HORODNY: I ask a supplementary question.

Mr Humphries: Another supplementary question?

MS HORODNY: No. The other one was not a supplementary question. I was asking you to answer the question. What checks are undertaken of the interstate waste when it arrives at Mitchell, to ensure that it does not contain hazardous substances that should not be burnt in an incinerator like the one at Mitchell?

MR HUMPHRIES: Again, this question is based on false information. The suggestion that you have made is that there is no adequate testing of material which is received by the incinerator at Mitchell before it is burnt. That is based in turn on what the Conservation Council says about the manifest system. They say that the ACT has no hazardous waste manifest system. That just is not true. We do have a system. The same waste manifest system that operates in New South Wales applies in the ACT.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .