Page 2736 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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MR COLLAERY: I cannot read the time stamp on the fax. Perhaps Mr Berry can assist us in due course as to what time it was received. I simply refute, from this part of the house, that there has been a lack of consultation or that we have jumped in peremptorily to do it, because it is that type of peremptory action that has brought this Assembly into so much disrepute. I think it would be unwise to start accusing each other of knee-jerk, peremptory acts in this debate again, given what we have gone through nationally.
The advice that Mr Berry has - and I have no reason to question it - is that existing equipment at Googong can dose at 0.5 milligrams per litre without modification of equipment. It does say that. It says - - -
Mr Connolly: Yes, whose advice?
MR COLLAERY: Mr Connolly has not read it, and queries it; but it says in paragraph 2, "Googong WTP can dose at 0.5 mg/L without modification of equipment". The next point I wish to come to is to put on record my inspection last year of the Stromlo installation. I went there with officials from my office, and I found rusting, ancient equipment that broke down in front of my own eyes when I was watching this conveyor belt drop that white stuff all over the place. It spilled on the floor. It is on ledges. I watched as the conveyor thing broke down, and it all stopped going into the water for a while. I was told that the equipment was installed in something like 1964. I invite members to go out there and look at how dilapidated, old-fashioned and mechanical, and welded up and patched up that machinery is.
So, I say to the Minister for Health: If he has advice that this equipment needs to be replaced, may we know the tolerance levels at which it is operating at this stage? What is the margin for gross error on the other side of the scale, which this Assembly may, by majority, resolve on tonight? And, if it does so resolve, should not that equipment at Stromlo be modified, replaced or have something done to it before March 1992, because the community's health is at stake?
Consideration interrupted.
SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDER 76
Motion (by Mr Berry), by leave, agreed to:
That standing order 76 be suspended for the remainder of this sitting.
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