Parliament House Matters

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY CHAMBER

The SPEAKER (14:11): Members, I crave your indulgence to talk about the House of Assembly. As I said this morning, welcome back; it is lovely to be back in our chamber. I am pleased to advise members that following the confirmation of tests on 15 June that minute traces of asbestos fibres had been found in the House of Assembly ceiling plenum, a very extensive remediation project has been completed, and I am sure you all saw that. I was pleased to receive a certificate of clearance on 21 August.

It may not be apparent from the floor of the chamber just how extensive and difficult the clean-up was. The source of the asbestos contamination was a canvas awning located in the ceiling, which was coated with paint with an asbestos content. The awning was as old as the chamber itself and was deteriorating, with flecks of paint dislodging into the plenum. This canvas has been safely removed now and a very large quantity of other old and potentially hazardous insulation material has also been removed from both the plenum and the upper ceiling. New insulation material has been installed in the upper ceiling space.

The plenum, the upper ceiling spaces and the chamber's ventilation system have been comprehensively cleaned and tested, as have the electrical and computer cabling, and light fittings. The ceiling above us has been cleaned as well, which required the erection of a very extensive scaffold that filled the chamber. The ceiling and then the walls were progressively cleaned and the scaffolding removed as cleaning progressed to floor level. The artworks and tapestries were cleaned and removed for safe storage by art conservators. The seats and the floor coverings have also been cleaned. Sadly, the acoustic curtains at the back of the chamber and in the public gallery did not survive the cleaning process. As I said earlier, they got to the back door and fell to pieces, but they will be replaced shortly.

The clean-up has been a necessary inconvenience. Once the contamination was identified there was no other course of action but to close the chamber, remove the source of the contamination and comprehensively clean all areas where there was any risk of further contamination being found. It has been a very difficult, labour-intensive and often stressful remediation process, as you can see from our clerks in the front, and I thank all members for their patience and support.

A number of people worked very long and difficult hours to minimise the disruption to the operations of the parliament and complete the clean-up on time. I will particularly make mention, first of all, of our Clerk, Malcolm Lehman, who had to forgo a trip to the Cook Islands so that he could be here. I think he knew there was an earthquake coming over there and he escaped that, but he certainly has been very important in this process and has worked very, very hard.

I would also like to mention David Woolman, the manager of the building services, who managed the project for the House of Assembly, and his team; Mr Sam Mangas and Andrew Kozirev from the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure; John Flavel and Phil Colton and their team from McMahon Services, who conducted the clean up and were here for weeks; Raf Soroczinski and Andrew Butler from HSE for the sampling, testing, air monitoring and technical advice throughout the project; and Mr Tony Wallis and his team from ASR, who constructed and then removed the very impressive 20 tonnes of scaffolding in the chamber (and you would have seen the fixture out the front, that they were able to bring that in and out, which closed off that area for quite sometime).

I would like to mention Helen Weidenhofer and her small team from ArtLab, who cleaned and cared for the artworks and tapestries (and I do not think they had been cleaned for about 50 years); Andrew Klenke from Swanbury Penglase for the research, heritage and architectural advice (and he was here for a lot of the time); and, of course, our very dear Mr John Moylan, chamber attendant, and the other chamber attendants; and Penny Cavanagh, the education officer, and all of the officers of the House of Assembly who worked very, very hard through that process.

It was a very, very difficult time for them. They did what was needed to relocate our sittings and continue with our community engagement programs, which, of course, was very difficult when this chamber could not be shown to the public. We are still waiting on final documentation on the project; it is still to arrive. When it does I will table a report on the remediation project. Thank you once again to everyone. Thank you to members for their patience, thank you to the Legislative Council for letting us use their place for those few days. It has been a very, very difficult process, but hopefully the problem now is solved and we can get back to normal, but hopefully not as normal as it was this morning. Point of order, member for Bragg.

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order, Madam Speaker. My point of order refers to the motion of the Minister for Transport immediately preceding your standing. Of course, when you stood I immediately remained submitted in silence, as I would of course. A motion had been put by the Minister for Transport for the publication of the Auditor-General's Report. My understanding is that there had already been a motion put to this house for publication, in fact, out of session, and accordingly we were provided with a copy of this last week. I just inquire as to the need to have a further motion for publication.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: No, I'm not blaming you yet; I am just asking for clarification. It is really a point of clarification, Madam Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Bragg. I will seek further information, but I think it is, again, the gremlins in the works today. It is a normal process. I am told that the minister's orders were to have multiple copies distributed, and that motion then was to have it published. Point of order, member for Ashford.

The Hon. S.W. KEY: Point of order, Madam Speaker. In relation to your report on the remediation of the asbestos, I am wondering whether the artwork, namely the graffiti that was found under some of the desks, that we believe was done by previous members of this house, has been kept.

The SPEAKER: This graffiti is not the sort of graffiti you see at a bus stop, and it is very old, we understand. Yes, it has been preserved and they are working on a way that it can be best displayed for members to have a look and see what graffiti was about 100 years ago. It is very interesting to have a look at if you want to find out about it after. I am not sure that was a point of order, but it is okay, it is the first day back.