Page 4333 - Week 13 - Thursday, 4 December 2014
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Many of the families felt that on a case-by-case basis some of the management measures and the way in which the contamination was dealt with in the short term on their properties were being made up on the run on a case-by-case basis that was not necessarily taking best practice into consideration. I understand that this is an unknown area. Government has not, for this size or scale, had to deal with such a contamination, particularly in the ACT. We are a small jurisdiction, and we are a relatively small jurisdiction when it comes to having to deal with major disasters. But it seems that many of the home owners have felt that the inconsistencies from one property to the other, and what they can and cannot do, have caused some unnecessary distress and uncertainty.
Likewise with communication: one home owner shared the experience that he first found out that his home was likely to be bulldozed and bought back by the government by a friend calling him up and saying, “Hi. I just heard it on the news,” as opposed to directly from the task force. It has been uncertain. And it has not just been that one issue; there have been many stages through this where the media often have the story out before home owners had a letter posted to them explaining what the decision or the next step in that process might be. I understand the difficulty in communicating the message, but in the first instance a letter from the task force or from a trusted representative on behalf of the government to a home owner goes a lot further than often the misrepresentation that has been occurring on this issue in the media.
To close off, a number of members have spoken about what the long-lasting legacy is going to be. I think it is going to go beyond the buyback scheme in the five or 10 years that the loan from the commonwealth comes. With the health implications, we are going to stretch beyond—to 40, 50, 60 years and beyond. I look forward to seeing what work the task force puts together as far as a management plan is concerned. It is not just for the home owners currently, for the Mr Fluffy properties, but for those that have previously owned or occupied one of these homes and all those, like me and many of the colleagues I have had through the construction industry, who potentially, unknowingly, have worked on these properties.
Since some of the details of properties have come out, I have found that there are a number of homes that I know I have done work on personally that are Fluffy homes. I have been in their roofs; I have been underneath them. Like so many in the industry, the level of exposure which an individual may have experienced is still unknown. It is going to be difficult for subsequent governments here in the territory to come up with an adequate management plan for both the health implications and the ongoing suffering that some people, unfortunately, are going experience as a consequence of this legacy.
It is going to be a long road ahead. Closure is what many families want—in whichever way, shape or form it comes—and some certainty. There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered. We as the opposition recognise the importance of the funding being available to start the buy-up scheme for those who are willing to enter into it at this point. But we recognise that there is going to need to be some more flexibility, and I think we are all going to need to continue to think outside the square
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