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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-03-23 Daily Xml
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EDWARDSTOWN GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (15:11): Supplementary question: will the government immediately notify residents in the suburbs affected by testing if—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: It's a supplementary question. The minister said he was going to—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: —continue testing. My question is—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: If the testing proves—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: If the testing proves positive, will the government undertake to immediately notify residents of the testing results?

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: That's a new question.

The SPEAKER: I think it is a new question; however, minister.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water) (15:11): She does get grumpy. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Again, for the benefit of the Leader of the Opposition, in 2009 legislation was introduced. The member for Elder back in 1994 was calling for their government to put in place—

An honourable member: Mr Wade.

The Hon. P. CAICA: Mr Wade. Of course, as I mentioned—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the Minister for Transport will be quiet!

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: And the member for Unley won't respond!

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Unley! Minister.

The Hon. P. CAICA: As I mentioned, during that period of time from 1993 through to 2002, diddly-squat was done by the opposition on this particular matter.

An honourable member: What does that mean?

The Hon. P. CAICA: It means 'nothing'. Again, for the benefit of the Leader of the Opposition, it is not the EPA that does the testing. We have a principle here that says that the polluter pays. In areas identified, either the former owner or the new owner—depending on what the circumstances are—will be required to undertake a series of testing. That will then be provided to the EPA, which, in turn, will work with our friends at health to determine any health risks whatsoever. We will notify people when there is information that is appropriate for those people to know, and we will do that as soon as practically possible to let them know that there is either a situation or, indeed, there is not a situation that they should be concerned about. That is appropriate.

I think the member for Schubert chaired—and I understood he was quite a good chair—the ERD Committee, which did an inquiry into the EPA back in 2000. It was a fairly comprehensive report, but in reading aspects of that report many members of what was the authority then—the equivalent of the board today—plus others said, 'Look, there's a precautionary principle here, and that precautionary principle is that you let people know when you've got information that is going to better inform them about what the situation is.' Not to—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA: Well, it depends entirely on what information you have available to you. That was no different, with the greatest respect to the opposition, than the policy and procedure that was adopted under their watch, save and except that we did things during our watch and continue to do so, and they did diddly-squat.

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