Page 2496 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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I have forwarded details of the complaints I have received from residents to the EPA as well as to Minister Fitzharris’s office. As I understand it, the EPA have been collecting data about the smell and have been conducting an investigation and analysis to try to determine the source of the odour. But in the information I have received to date from the Chief Minister and Minister Fitzharris they have yet to confirm the exact source of the smell. In one letter of 5 April this year from Minister Fitzharris to a constituent, the minister said:
While there have been a number of complaints from residents, the source of the odour is not clear.
A letter of 7 April 2016 from the EPA on Access Canberra letterhead to residents says:
The EPA has not been able to conclusively determine the source of the odour.
But in answer to a question taken on notice during estimates hearings, the Chief Minister said:
The EPA has invested significant resources in investigating the complaints it received but to date has not been able to conclusively determine the source of the odour.
So the question remains whether the efforts and the resources of the EPA are sufficient. There is a lot of unrest—in fact, it would probably be fair to say anger—amongst residents of these particular suburbs, and it is quite far afield. There are probably six different suburbs of Tuggeranong and Woden that I have received complaints from on various occasions.
The Chief Minister said the government has engaged an odour management expert to undertake a preliminary assessment of the Mugga Lane Resource Management Recovery Centre and the Hume Resource Recovery Estate in April this year and that that report recommended the installation of a low wind speed meteorological station at the Mugga site.
Back in February of this year in my motion about the reported odour in Tuggeranong I called on the government to conduct some tests to observe downwind odour intensity and frequency in and around certain locations in Tuggeranong and process the data, comparing the frequency and intensity of odours. That is a paraphrasing of my motion in February. It has been six months since I called on the government to conduct these tests to the installation of a weather station at the Mugga Lane tip, so it is pretty disappointing to residents that it has taken so long to implement what seemed like quite a logical suggestion made in February.
I would also like to reiterate recommendation 49 of the Select Committee on Estimates 2016-2017 report about Access Canberra, that is, that future budget papers provide better detail for the output class relating to Access Canberra with respect to budget descriptors and key performance indicators. In the government’s response to the estimates committee report it noted this recommendation and indicated that
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