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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1416 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The campaigners then decided to attack the material safety data sheet for Delan - which is prepared by the manufacturer, Bayer - as not being independent. What they overlooked was that these sheets must be prepared by companies in accordance with the Australian standards - if they are not, there are serious consequences - and the sheets must then be approved by Environment Australia and Worksafe before they can be released. Madam Deputy Speaker, it is perfectly clear that it is impossible for that material safety data sheet to be misleading or to not be reliable.

So, in the course of this campaign, we have had false allegations of secret activities; we have had false allegations about pesticide incineration, based on ignorance; we have had the independence of Environment Australia and Worksafe questioned; it has been claimed that the United Nations Environment Program and the New South Wales EPA do not know the appropriate means of disposal of Delan and Propoxur; and we have had the basic laws of chemistry ignored.

I want to put on the record now - putting aside the fantasy about this debate - what has actually been happening at Totalcare. The incinerator has been engineered to enable it to destroy safely a wide range of hazardous materials. The bulk of the wastes destroyed there is medical and pharmaceutical wastes. However, the incinerator is also capable of safely destroying many other hazardous substances; and, accordingly, smaller quantities of other substances, such as Delan and Propoxur, have been accepted from time to time for destruction.

The issue of accepting wastes from interstate has been raised. Wastes are certainly accepted from interstate, Madam Deputy Speaker. Indeed, members should recall that making the incinerator of Totalcare a reasonably profitable enterprise from the Territory's point of view was part of the reason for establishing Totalcare in the first place, back in the early 1990s. The acceptance of wastes from areas outside the ACT was part of that process. Totalcare operates commercially, and will compete for suitable disposal contracts.

The same, of course, applies to wastes generated in the ACT. Some of these are sent interstate. In fact, some must be sent interstate, because there are no appropriate disposal facilities in the ACT. So, there is a range of facilities available for the disposal of certain sorts of materials. Generally speaking, as far as the system is concerned, they go to the place where it is most appropriate for them to be destroyed. Sometimes the most appropriate place is the incinerator at Totalcare.

To refuse to accept interstate waste, as has been suggested by some, would obviously not only put at risk the business that Totalcare runs - and runs safely, I would say - but also put at risk the reciprocal treatment by other States of our waste which is sent away. Often our waste is more dangerous, because it is of a higher order, and needs to be incinerated at places outside the ACT. The ACT would be left with a growing stockpile of hazardous substances which we cannot treat. That is not the type of legacy which this Government wants to leave to our children.

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