Page 892 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 March 2016
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On being asked further questions, Mr Barr said:
There is a range of matters. There are more than 1,000 households who have 1,000 different circumstances that require the attention of the task force.
He went on:
I refer the member to my previous answers. The question is not one of disagreement over whether a board of inquiry will be established; it is one of the priorities.
“It is one of the priorities”. We see very clearly that the Mr Fluffy board of inquiry is not a priority for this government. We see the sorts of things that are a priority for this government, but something that was a burning issue clearly is not a priority any longer for this Chief Minister. Indeed, by October last year the Chief Minister was rejecting calls for an inquiry into the Mr Fluffy disaster. We saw in the Canberra Times on 4 March under the headline “Chief Minister Andrew Barr all-but abandons Fluffy board of inquiry”:
Chief Minister Andrew Barr has all-but abandoned the full board of inquiry into the Fluffy affair…
The news came as a body blow to some owners of the asbestos-contaminated houses who have been holding out for an inquiry to get to the bottom of how the dangerous loose-fill asbestos insulation was allowed to be pumped into ceilings and its handling since.
That has, I know, become very disappointing for large sections of the community. Mr Rattenbury was reported as saying that he wanted an inquiry: “Mr Rattenbury to push for Mr Fluffy inquiry sooner rather than later.” But when I have spoken to Mr Rattenbury since then his comments have not filled me with any comfort that he is not just going to fall into line with what Mr Corbell in question time identified as “the coalition”. I will be interested to see what Mr Rattenbury has to say today, because it appears that the government never intended to hold an inquiry; they never wanted an inquiry. A couple of their members did.
Clearly from that Legislative Assembly committee inquiry we have seen disingenuous comments from both the Chief Minister and the Greens minister pretending to the community that there is going to be some sort of inquiry. They created the illusion that there was going to be some sort of inquiry. But when we get to the point where we now have the opportunity for members to vote for a board of inquiry to be set up—when it comes to the rub—we see all the Labor members and the Green members, this self-described coalition, voting against an inquiry. If that is the case, if that is your position, be honest with the community and say, “We lied before. We weren’t telling the truth. We’re not going to do an inquiry.”
As we know, this is an issue that has affected 1,200 home owners as their houses are in the process of being demolished. But, much more than that, it has affected the people who have lived in those houses previously and many members of the
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