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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4219 ..

MRS CROSS (9.12), in reply: Mr Speaker, the asbestos awareness bill has made the last few weeks somewhat more hectic for everyone than they might otherwise have been. The bill had its germination in a paragraph drafted by the Asbestos Diseases Foundation Australia’s legal team which sought to have included in a residential building report an inspection for the presence and identification of asbestos so as to protect owners, renovators, tenants and workmen. And it grew like Topsy to reach this point. I am sorry for such angst, but I believe it was worth it in the end.

Together we have finally come up with some groundbreaking legislation that will help provide protection for generations down the line. As things stand at present, estimates are that over the next 35 years tens of thousands of Australians, more than 50,000 people, will die of asbestos-related diseases. This is the terrible legacy of the insidious effect of asbestos over past generations. What I am hoping is that what we are about to do this evening, tonight, will go a long way towards ensuring that horrendous figures like this will, with the passage of time, steadily fade away as the monster disappears from our society and the world becomes safer for future generations. The Legislative Assembly should be proud of how it has cooperated so energetically to come up with a result we can all be proud of.

I wish to address some of the comments made by members, Mr Speaker. Firstly, I would like to commend you on your speech and commend other members for their support of this bill in principle. Ms Tucker referred to the media reports recently. I have said all along that all members are entitled to their opinion. Ms Tucker and I can agree to disagree, as we do on other issues, and I will leave that at that.

May I just say that this issue was first raised with the Chief Minister’s office in April. My understanding is that it was raised within ALP ranks last year. This was raised by the widows of asbestos victims who, as Ms Tucker said, through their valiant and persevering efforts, tried to get this issue addressed by legislation and failed. Everyone was sympathetic, everyone wanted something done but nothing happened. I commend Ms Tucker for the question she asked the minister in June. Ms Tucker did something. But at the end of the day this issue was brought to my attention in July. This is the end of the sitting; this is the end of the Assembly term. There was not much time and I was not prepared to stand by and do nothing.

Regarding how many places there are in Canberra for getting asbestos tested: there was a reference earlier that there is only one. That is not the case; there is not only one place for testing of asbestos. There is one private company, but asbestos removal inspectors I have talked to generally take their samples for testing over to Ian Fox at the government analytical laboratory in Holder for testing and can get a result within a couple of hours at a cost of $56, including GST.

I have heard the arguments put to me by some groups. Indeed I was quite shocked last night when I was leaving this chamber, after having made a number of attempts to contact some industry groups—one, in particular—and I accidentally bumped into one of the two individuals in the lobby at the members’ entrance. I said to one of the gentlemen, “Look, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a while. Could we have a chat?” The other fellow with this man, whose name I will not mention because he does not deserve

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