Page 2511 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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in in mid-2014 and the significant emotional impact felt by those families as they have faced necessary and enormously complex decisions about their future.
We have stood, and continue to stand, ready to offer any assistance we can in that process. The task force continues to provide as much information as it can to owners and neighbours to help inform their decision. It continues to draw linkages with community services and community groups. It continues to offer personalised advice through the personal support team.
The Mr Fluffy issue has plagued our city since 1968 when the original warnings about installation in houses with pure raw asbestos were unheeded, through to the original removal program in the late 1980s and then through to the early 1990s to today. There is no doubt that there should be a full inquiry into the issue. But one that does not proceed with the willing cooperation and assistance of the commonwealth government is futile and cannot do justice to this complex and long-running story.
The consensus advice of experts consulted by the task force, subsequently confirmed when the New South Wales government examined the same issues, is that houses contaminated with loose-fill asbestos insulation cannot be saved. Demolition is the only enduring solution to the health risks posed by the presence of this form of asbestos inside the houses and the practical, social and financial consequences it generates.
The path to Canberra and Canberrans leaving Mr Fluffy behind, sadly, lies only through the demolition of contaminated houses and the psychological and social rebuilding that will come as new ones are constructed. That is not an easy or straightforward path, but it is the right path, indeed, the only path.
The government remains committed to the eradication of Mr Fluffy asbestos from our city through the loose-fill asbestos insulation eradication scheme. I commend the appropriations and the ongoing work of the committed team in the task force to the Assembly.
Mr Hanson: I seek leave to speak.
Leave not granted.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (4.58): I rise to speak to the budget line items relating to economic development, business and industrial relations within the portfolio area that is Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development. Whilst I have only had responsibility for part of this line item for less than a month, I feel a great affinity with the issues that are attached to these areas.
Firstly, Madam Deputy Speaker, I cannot go any further in this output class without first mentioning the government’s memorandum of understanding with UnionsACT. The memorandum of understanding between the ACT government and UnionsACT casts an all-pervading, sinister eye over all business transactions undertaken by this Labor government and serves to underpin our economy in a
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