Page 2677 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 June 2012
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This is an issue we have raised throughout this Assembly term and in other Assemblies. We have brought wood smoke pollution to the Assembly as both a matter of public importance and a motion. I have said many times that I do not believe the current approach to wood smoke pollution in the ACT is adequate, particularly from a health perspective.
I hope that this draft legislation and discussion paper will be the beginning of real, positive changes. We have started a community discussion about the best initiatives to address wood smoke pollution in the territory. I hope that I can have productive discussions with the government and the Liberal Party about how to progress these initiatives.
As an inland region with populated valleys, cold winters and a significant number of residential wood heaters, Canberra is particularly affected by wood smoke pollution. In areas like the Tuggeranong valley, wood smoke becomes trapped by temperature inversions which cause it to linger close to the ground and increases its concentration.
The National Environment Protection Council, which is the federal body responsible for air quality, accepts that Canberra has a winter particle pollution problem due to wood heater emissions. This is clearly demonstrated by continued monitoring of particle pollution which shows that particle levels during the colder months of the year are about three times higher than in the warmer months. Analyses of the air in Tuggeranong, from the Monash air monitoring station, show that the advisory standards for particulate matter pollution have been exceeded on numerous occasions due to wood smoke pollution.
You do not need an air quality monitoring station to know that winter wood smoke pollution is a problem in Canberra. Many people make complaints to the government about the wood smoke. In fact recent data shows that in recent winters the government has received over 100 complaints.
The primary motivation for proposing this legislation and the accompanying recommendations is the health impacts caused by wood smoke pollution in Canberra. Wood smoke contains particle matter pollution, also called PM10 and PM2.5. PM2.5 is now considered the most health-hazardous form of air pollution, and it is thought to be responsible for about 20 times as many premature deaths as the next worst pollutant, ozone.
Wood heaters are responsible for the majority of particulate matter pollution in Canberra. In 2010-11 they produced over 70 per cent of particulate matter pollution, with the remainder mostly coming from motor vehicles. It is well established that particulate matter pollution has serious impacts on human health. These impacts include increased mortality, particularly from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases; inflammation of the lungs; increased respiratory illness, such as bronchitis and asthma; adverse effects on cardiovascular systems; and increased medication use and hospitalisation.
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