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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (12 October) . . Page.. 2921 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

(1) censures the Minister for Urban Services for misleading the Canberra community on the extent of the government's response to the disposal of lead-contaminated metal flock at Belconnen Landfill and the extent of lead contamination of this waste material;

(2) calls on the Minister for Urban Services to assure the Assembly that the recent events at the Landfill will not occur again by providing a report to the Assembly by the first day of the December 1999 sitting period on:

Mr Speaker, I have put forward the censure motion today because I am very concerned about the Government's performance generally in responding to the problems caused by lead-contaminated waste being dumped at the Belconnen landfill, which has resulted in the landfill being temporarily closed, workers at the landfill being exposed to high levels of lead over a prolonged period, and 2,000 tonnes of this waste having to be removed from the landfill. I am also concerned about the Government's attempt to avoid responsibility for this fiasco by publicly misrepresenting its role in detecting and responding to this problem.

Firstly, let me describe what has happened at the Belconnen landfill. For the last couple of years about three loads a week of floc have been dumped at the landfill. The floc is the residue from the recycling of car bodies and other metal equipment and contains a mix of various types of shredded plastics, rubber, glass, fibreglass and residual materials. The floc has been brought here from Sydney and Wollongong by a company called Metalcorp Recyclers. I understand that the floc was brought here as a backload for the transport of scrap metal out of the ACT region, under an agreement with the ACT Government. However, over the last three months the amount of floc suddenly increased to about five truckloads a day, much more than the amount of scrap metal being taken out of the ACT.

Workers at the landfill started becoming concerned about this increased amount of waste. Because the floc is light and fluff-like, workers were concerned about breathing in airborne pollutants while moving the floc around and some workers started complaining of sore throats and eyes. This came to a head on 31 August when one of the loads contained some metal waste that was not normally in the floc. The landfill workers called in their union, the CFMEU, and the union's OH&S officer raised their concerns with the management of ACT Waste. I understand, however, that the management was not very interested in investigating the union's concerns.

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