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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (22 April) . . Page.. 1190 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

preschool sandpits also had been chemically sprayed. As a result of this incident and on the recommendation of the manufacturer of simazine, more than 80 preschool sandpits will need to have their sand completely replaced.

Numerous studies have found that exposure to hazardous pollution and chemicals is a major children's health issue and a number of the health problems associated with environmental hazards have become increasingly prevalent in children. In the United States, allergy is the No. 1 cause of chronic illness in children under the age of 17. Twenty to 30 per cent of all children suffer from a major allergic disease, such as asthma, rhinitis, sinusitis and skin rashes. In Australia, we have seen soaring rates of childhood asthma, and the incidence of childhood cancers, reproductive disorders and birth defects has all increased significantly in the last 50 years.

Children are much more vulnerable than adults to chemical exposure. They absorb a greater amount of chemicals per body weight than do adults and have a faster respiratory rate. Children are also most at risk of neurological, endocrine and immune system damage from the synergistic effects of chemicals combining in the environment. In light of these very real concerns about the impact of chemicals on the health of our children, the spraying of the Curtin Preschool sandpit and possibly other preschool sandpits in the ACT suggests dangerous disregard for the health of Canberra children by the ACT Government.

It is not good enough just to be told, "Oh, someone did something wrong". We want to see systems in place which reduce as much as we can the possibility of something just going wrong. That is what Mr Moore has spoken about recently in regard to the hospital system. He is prepared to look at how the possibility of human error can be decreased to the absolute minimum. This is the same thing. It is just not good enough to say that someone did the wrong thing. It suggests a lack of action by the ACT Government to implement the recommendations of the Commissioner for the Environment in his damning report on government use of pest control chemicals in the ACT.

As the Assembly knows, this issue has a long history. In February 1996 the Greens called for an inquiry into government use of chemicals for pest control. Finally, in May 1998 the underresourced Commissioner for the Environment handed down his report, "An investigation into the ACT Government's use of chemicals for pest control". As the Assembly also knows, the Commissioner for the Environment in his report raised major concerns about lack of regulation, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of government use of chemicals for pest control. He found that the purchaser-provider model has fragmented a whole-of-government approach to pest management on land and property under the management of the ACT Government.

He also found that under this new model responsibility for developing and monitoring pest control policies is often devolved to people with no knowledge or experience in this critical area. For example, he pointed to the fact that in Education and Training and in Health there were no known policies on pest management in existence and that responsibility for pest control had been devolved to some 120 school principals. Specifically, he found, to quote directly from the report:

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