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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2595 ..

Mr Humphries: That is hard to imagine.

MR MOORE: Mr Humphries interjects, "That is hard to imagine". Of course, we all enjoy the wry smile, particularly when the comments are directed at somebody else rather than us.

This is a good example of an issue that has been scrutinised very carefully and watched carefully. Very difficult issues have been dealt with in a cooperative and sensible way, without being thrown into the hype of public debate that we sometimes get into. The reason behind that is that I think all members were very conscious of the pain that people were suffering, knowing that their homes were the subject of consideration as to whether they were contaminated and whether contamination had passed to themselves and their children. I think that the outcomes of the process will be very positive. I also do not expect to see this situation written up broadly in the media in the same way as when things are going wrong. I think it has been a particularly positive approach.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.41), in reply: I would concur with the comments made by Mr Moore. When we are dealing with issues like this, it is extremely easy to run away with the issue and to exploit perceived or sometimes fabricated deficiencies in the process, to assert that someone's rights are being denied or that there are some problems with the process. For my part, I think that this has been handled relatively sensitively both by my predecessor and the former Government and by us.

The issues on occasions have been very difficult and complex; but I think it is a matter that we play with and exploit for political purposes at our peril, given that we are dealing with matters of extreme sensitivity, both because of the risk to people's health by the presence of arsenic and other heavy metals and contaminants within the soil and because we are dealing with someone's home, what most people would regard as their principal and most important piece of property or asset.

I believe that we are now substantially over the hump of the contaminated sites issue in the ACT. We believe that the vast majority, if not all, of the sites in the ACT have been identified. Remedial action is being taken in respect of all the sites that are appropriately to be remediated. Almost all of that should be concluded in this financial year. Appropriate mechanisms have been adopted to deal with those who are affected by buyouts or other actions of that kind, and the community now has a process being put in train to allow information about such processes in the future to be adequately available to reassure people that the steps are being taken to protect their most fundamental interest, that is, their health.

I think the process is one that has been handled carefully and sensitively. This report demonstrates that. I hope that that is the way we handle other issues of a similar kind in the future, should there be any, which touch on public health in this very volatile way.

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