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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (12 October) . . Page.. 2955 ..

MS TUCKER: Thank you. Mr Smyth claims that as the department gained more knowledge they reacted. The critical point of my concerns that I have been raising today is that it is not good enough to wait for information to come in this way. If it was not for the union the information would not have come. I heard Mr Smyth say to the media that there are checks and balances in place at the tip, but the Government does have to work in good faith with the business community as well. The Government also has a responsibility to work in good faith with people who are working at the tip. It has a responsibility to work in good faith with the ACT community when it puts out statements about what it is doing, and a responsibility to work in good faith with its publicly stated aims and commitments to the environment.

I might remind Mr Smyth, as Minister for the environment, of the precautionary principle. It is that the lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation. The old argument that we do not have absolute scientific proof so therefore we will not act is at the key of environmental degradation on this planet. That is why we have such a thing as a precautionary principle. A totally unacceptable argument has come from the Minister this morning. It is particularly ironic as he is the Minister for the environment.

I think it was Mr Smyth who also was very concerned that I was asking questions about what waste is coming from other States. He did misrepresent what I am saying about that. I have never said at any point in time that we should not receive waste from interstate. What I have said is: "Why are we such a popular destination for interstate waste?". I am just asking that question. As I already explained in my speech, it appears from the research my office has been able to do that we are indeed attractive because of the price we are offering. We need to see the detailed information about that. In my motion all I am doing is asking that the Government give us some information about how much waste is coming in from interstate and the nature of that waste.

I am very disappointed that Mr Kaine wants to amend the motion and to take that out. It seems a fairly innocuous request. We are just asking for information which one hopes the Government has. If it has not got it, we ask it to get it so that we can see how that fits into its strategy for no waste by 2010. It is obviously a significant aspect of waste management in the ACT and we are really only asking for information. I cannot imagine why that is offensive to Mr Kaine or to anyone else.

Mr Smyth also said I like to talk about best practice. Yes, that is true. I do not know why that should be a problem. The reason I am raising best practice at this point is that it appears not to have been put in place. Mr Smyth, when he talked about working in good faith with the business community, also said there are checks and balances. The question is: What are the checks and balances?

We got an initial test or analysis of the floc from a consultant employed by the company. That is what we were given to begin with. There has not been any interest taken by waste management in terms of whether or not that analysis is correct, or whether or not the nature of the waste has changed. In other words, there are no checks and balances there for ensuring that the information that is given is correct and to ensure that what is coming in is as was stated at the beginning.

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