Page 4299 - Week 13 - Thursday, 4 December 2014
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playing God, but we did go through a very thorough process. I hope that the people who did not have the opportunity to appear before us realised that we had limited time and that we went through quite an intense process to ensure that we got a good picture and a cross-section of people who had submitted to us, who could appear before us and represent other people who had submitted.
It is no easy task to set down one’s thoughts and feelings in a submission to an inquiry, and it is even more nerve racking to come and give evidence in person and take questions from the committee. As members of this place, we are all used to those processes. Sometimes even members of this place find them daunting. But for the ordinary person in the street it is another thing altogether. I appeared before a committee; I think Mr Smyth will remember me appearing before a committee years ago, when I was in the community sector. I am not quite sure that I handled that process very well at the time because I was totally overawed by the whole process.
The chair has outlined the various circumstances that we both read about and heard about in the evidence that was before us. I will not go over those again. I just want to say that I know there are many out there who did not come before us and did not submit, because it was a very small number of people that appeared before us. I think the report says nearly 60 people submitted. Some of those were interested individuals and not Mr Fluffy home owners. So the number of actual Mr Fluffy home owners who submitted was less than that number, and we do know there is a much larger number of people who did not submit, who did not feel that they wanted to or needed to, and who did not want to come before us and give evidence. I understand that those people did not come to the hearings and did not give evidence.
There is a recommendation that we need to reach out and talk individually with families, especially around the information sharing, and find out the situation that some people are in that maybe we do not know about at the moment. There are a lot of unknowns at the moment; I think we would all agree. I thank everyone for participating in this process up to this point.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra) (9.22): I want to speak briefly on the inquiry into the Mr Fluffy home matters and the appropriation bill that is before us today. A couple of weeks ago I visited a friend of mine. The day I knocked on his door he had received his oncology results that showed he had mesothelioma. He is a Mr Fluffy home owner. I think we need to understand how terrible and how deadly loose-fill asbestos is for affected home owners and people in the community as well. I thank all those individuals that submitted for their bravery in telling their stories.
I know that out of this not everybody will be happy. I think people will still continue to be angry and sad for a very long time. I hope people do not take advantage of the vulnerability of those people in our community. I sincerely hope that out of this report some people’s anxieties can be eased. I hope that people who have not engaged with the task force do so, and get answers to some of the questions that we could not answer during the inquiry. Because of the short time we had, we could not hear everybody’s stories but I think we got a bit of a taste for how a few people feel. I think it was important, and I absolutely commend them for their bravery.
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