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) (14:43): Supplementary, sir. Given that the government has known about the contamination in this area for six years, why is it only now that the government is appointing a contamination consultant to undertake further investigative work in suburbs adjacent to Clovelly Park?

The SPEAKER: Well, again, that's not a supplementary because it doesn't arise out of the previous question or the previous answer; it's just a separate question. Minister.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for the Public Sector) (14:43): So, the question is about the fact that the government has now hired, or will hire, a consultant. I am happy to be corrected if I have misunderstood this but it seems to me that what has occurred is that there has now been a trigger reached in some houses which is an international trigger for further investigation and that's what has been acted upon.

The trigger has caused the various experts within the government to get together to work out what the implications are for those immediate houses. What that trigger has also done, as I understand it, is lead to the EPA deciding that they need to test the areas adjacent to ensure where that watercourse is moving and whether that has interacted with the soil.