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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1421 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Madam Deputy Speaker, I have outlined very generally the reasons why the Labor Party is moving these amendments. We believe that it is appropriate that some independent party investigate the whole issue of the incineration of pesticides and agricultural chemicals at the Mitchell facility. We believe that it is appropriate to do this to inform residents, through an independent party, as the Commissioner for the Environment is, about the safety or otherwise of the incineration of such materials. We believe that it is important to do that and we hope that other members of the Assembly will support that move. The Labor Party will be supporting Mr Osborne's motion, with these amendments, hopefully.

MS HORODNY (4.49): Madam Deputy Speaker, the Greens are happy to support Mr Osborne's motion about the Totalcare incinerator. The motion basically raises the issue of the public's right to know about the threats to their safety from chemicals and pollutants in the environment. The Totalcare incinerator was established in the 1980s to incinerate medical waste from ACT hospitals. That is what it was established for - to incinerate medical waste from ACT hospitals only. We accept that at that time this was the best available practice for disposing of this type of hazardous waste. What concerns me, however, is that over time, as Totalcare was made into a commercial operator, the incinerator has become a business opportunity for Totalcare to dispose of any waste that a supplier is prepared to pay for.

I would be very interested to find out from Mr Humphries or Mr Kaine how much was paid to Totalcare for the incineration of that waste last year that created the controversy. I would be interested to know whether it was a sum that made it worth all the bother.

Mr Humphries: No, it certainly would not have been. I can guarantee that it would not have been worth all the bother.

MS HORODNY: That is right. The change to Totalcare happened with very little public knowledge, let alone scrutiny, and came to a head only recently with the revelation that Totalcare has been incinerating the fungicide Delan and also pesticide containers.

Mr Humphries mentioned a few times that he thinks it is irresponsible that Mr Darlington has brought this issue to the attention of the ACT community in the way that he has; but I believe that it was actually very responsible, because would we be having this debate here today if he had not? I think we would not. So, I think it is appropriate that people in the community bring these sorts of things to the attention of the Government in order to highlight problems that exist in the community and to ensure that there is some action here in the Assembly on these issues.

Mr Humphries: So, it is all right to tell lies to get attention, is it? You can tell lies to get attention; is that what you are saying?

MS HORODNY: If you think it is lies, Mr Humphries, maybe you need to table some very clear, absolute evidence that proves that what was coming out of the stack was not toxic chemicals. The Delan incident highlighted the fact that there is very little information available to the community about what is actually burnt in the incinerator and whether this waste is safely disposed of without any toxic pollutants being released.

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