House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-07-03 Daily Xml

Contents

Site Contamination, Clovelly Park and Mitchell Park

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:15): My question is to the Premier. In relation to escalated air contamination at Clovelly Park, why did the government spend 48 days developing a public relations strategy when there is a standard EPA protocol for advising the public?

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Finniss is called to order for that involuntary ejaculation. The Minister for Manufacturing.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for the Public Sector) (14:15): As the member of this house who represents the Minister for Environment in the other place, I have endeavoured to familiarise myself with some of the information that the opposition may be asking about today. My understanding is that the period of time—as I believe I referred to in the ministerial statement—between the receiving of the report that came from Monroe and its consultants and the time when people were going to be informed about the implications for themselves, was taken to have an auditor confirm the report and understand those implications, to confer between the relevant agencies to determine the appropriate reaction, and then to go out and speak to the residents.

I understand that the reason for the need for that discussion is, first of all, of course, to determine whether the data that is provided is accurate and sufficient to draw a conclusion and, secondly, to make sure that there are not unnecessarily alarming messages sent, that are not accurate, to people about the implications for them. The EPA and SA Health, in particular, are the experts in that field and, of course, Housing SA was involved in that task force also, given that the vast majority of people are tenants.