Dangerous Substances (LPG Cylinder Labelling) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 2 December 2020.)

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (12:44): I rise to make a very important contribution to the Dangerous Substances (LPG Cylinder Labelling) Amendment Bill 2020. This is a very important and very difficult topic this chamber is having to grapple with, and I know that it is a very difficult topic for you and your community, Mr Deputy Speaker, given some really awful recent events.

LPG safety is an issue the world has had to deal and grapple with for some 140 or 150 years. Some of the earliest liquified gases used for lighting and heating back in the 1800s naturally had a sulfur compound that gave them a smell. That smell helped people recognise that there was a dangerous substance in the air. Having done a bit of research on this topic for the purpose of this debate, I understand some of the real dangers around inhaling or consuming LNG or other natural gases. My research shows that they can be dangerous or deadly very quickly; in fact, you do not need to have much exposure or inhale or ingest much before they leave some lasting, if not deadly, effects.

In the early 1800s, there was town gas, especially in places like the UK, which was used for lighting and heating. Essentially, the carbonisation of coal created hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and that gas contained the sulfur compounds that gave it a gassy odour, so as it leaked it smelled and people understood it was there in the room. The smell of odourised gas is quite distinctive, and I learned quite early on and quite young from my parents that its smell meant there was gas in the air. If you have ever gone with mum or dad to get a gas cylinder refilled or turned on the gas stove, you would have smelled that unmistakable smell. The gas itself, however, is made absent those sulfur compounds and does not have a natural smell to it, which is quite dangerous.

The first odorisation of gas came in the 1880s in Germany, where they started to add ethyl mercaptan to water gas to intentionally reproduce that gassy odour. However, the real advance and the real change in adding an odour to LNG and other natural gases happened in the 1930s. There was an awful case at the New London School, in Texas, which was built in 1932 and had natural gas lines built as part of it. In 1937, the school board decided to cut costs by dropping the contract with the local gas company. The residual gas that existed in those lines would often be tapped and used as a way to recover money, that gas being valuable and could be used for other purposes.

In the instance where the gas lines were tapped at the New London School in Texas, there was a leak along a portion of the line. That gas made its way throughout the length and breadth of the school in the crawlspace. From there, a spark ignited the gas, which led to a massive explosion and up to 295 deaths. It was an awful situation and unfortunately a really awful cautionary tale that led to the odorisation of gas as a way to make sure people know by the natural incidence of smelling gas in the air that there is either a leak somewhere or unexpended, unexpired gas around.

We have a whole series and a whole framework these days around how pressurised LNG, for instance, is transported in nine-litre bottles around the country, and those regulations are pretty good. We do not see or hear of explosions on any regular basis; it does happen from time to time, especially with older and corroded gas bottles. We have had a couple of examples but, again, to my understanding those examples very much fall outside what would be common practice in making sure that you keep your gas bottles safe.

In fact, it used to be—and it still is the norm—that you could take your gas bottle and get it refilled. What has happened, especially over the last decade, is a move away from taking the gas bottle and getting it filled, as I remember back in the late eighties and nineties, to a situation today where you go and swap a gas bottle. By virtue of doing that, it saves time for an attendant at a petrol station, for instance, to have to fill it up, but it also gives opportunity for the company selling the gas to test and check that those gas bottles are safe. I think that is a very good development, one that no doubt saves time, as people are able to just swap those gas bottles over, and also introduces an added safety step that helps to make the purchasing and the use of LPG specifically much more safe.

In Angaston, we recently had gas come to the town. It sounds a bit archaic, but gas is not available throughout much of South Australia. In fact, I did read the other week that bringing gas to Mount Barker, which is something that I understand has been in the pipeline for a long time—no pun intended—was abandoned on the basis that it was not commercial anymore. But there is an opportunity in Angaston for us to tap into natural gas.

The difficulty for my household is that, when we bought our house in 2014 and redeveloped and renovated it, we put in all electric appliances. I understand that the gas price is pretty high at the moment, so making the switch now is not as much of an economically viable choice as it used to be. The cost of changing all those appliances over, whether that be the hot-water service or whether that be the gas stove, would add a cost that makes it not viable to do.

I know that in recent times we had a tragic death from the ingestion of natural gas here in South Australia, and that is an awful tragedy. Making sense of that tragedy and helping to learn the lessons from that tragedy are things that we should do as these incidents occur. In fact, there is some suggestion that we should do so before incidents occur. However, it gives us an opportunity to reflect on and look at how we can further improve safety systems in relation to the provision of natural gas.

Here in South Australia we have a piece of legislation before us that seeks to create a change at a state level. I understand from media reports and from speaking to the Treasurer that a national solution is being proffered at the moment to improve labelling right across the country so that it is about improving safety not just here in South Australia but right across the country. In fact, the companies that supply gas in its various forms are national, so it does make sense for those solutions to be national so that we can learn the lessons and help to improve safety in this regard right across the country.

This is an important issue. It is good to see that there is progress being made. Unfortunately, it does come after an awfully tragic incident, but if we can help to stop that kind of incident happening into the future then we can know that we have helped to improve safety for what is a very useful but also a very dangerous substance for all Australians right across this country.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Brown.