Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Newcastle Herald, in conjunction with Macquarie University, has recently conducted lead-level testing in and around homes near the old lead smelter in Boolaroo—130 soil and vacuum cleaner dust samples were taken from homes, parks, sporting fields and schools in the suburbs of Boolaroo, Speers Point, Argenton and Teralba. They found more than half of the public spaces and all but one of the 19 homes tested recorded higher than acceptable lead levels. For example, a sample from an oval in Speers Point contained 17,500 parts per million of lead, almost 300 per cent above the safe level. Two soil samples from Boolaroo Public School's playground exceeded the Australian standard by 300 per cent, and a sample taken outside Speers Point Public School was eight times over the limit.

Obviously, this is cause for concern for those living in the immediate vicinity, but it is also an issue for the broader Lake Macquarie region as we continue to deal with the environmental legacy of our industrial past. The Cockle Creek lead smelter was in operation for over 100 years, and the surrounding township was born from the employment the 'sulphide corporation' offered. But, of course, throughout its life span, the smelter also emitted hundreds of tonnes of pollution. It produced an abundance of sulphide slag which was used as a landscaping material across the region, and it discharged effluent into Cockle Creek which flowed into Lake Macquarie.

There is no known safe level of lead exposure, but we do know that the impact of lead toxicity is particularly harmful for young children. Our understanding of the health impacts of this kind of pollution have developed over recent decades. So, too, have measures to prevent or respond to the threat posed to nearby communities by the smelter and its operations. These include: blood testing of employees and, later, children in the area; the creation of a buffer zone around the smelter and the acquisition of a number of properties within it; and targeted remediation in homes where children were found to have excessively high blood lead levels, such as recarpeting, soil works and dust extraction from ceiling cavities.

However, it is the success of the most recent works that are called into question by the Newcastle Herald's study. In 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a remediation order on then smelter owners Pasminco. Their response was a remediation action plan which included the collection of slag materials and for contaminated soils to be housed in a buried cell on site. A lead abatement strategy was also put in place which gave nearby home owners the option of soil removal and top dressing in order to lower lead levels. However, unlike the old plant site, removal of soil to the depth of contamination was not a requirement.

Both projects are now complete. Residential land on the former smelter site is now selling and the commercial zone is developing. Major road works, also provided by the administrator, are nearing completion. But, as the Newcastle Herald's report suggests, if the remediation works have failed or have caused higher lead levels in surrounding areas, it must be addressed immediately.

The New South Wales government, through the EPA, is obliged to ensure the conditions of its remediation order are adhered to. It is not appropriate to expect an administrator, whose main role is to seek outcomes for creditors, to ensure the community's safety. It is likewise not appropriate to expect a newspaper and a university to monitor the effectiveness of a major project such as this. Putting aside the limited resources of both, it is a basic tenet of our democracy to expect government to have the capability and the motivation to conduct the most thorough assessments when it comes to our environment and public health.

If further testing of lead levels is required, this must be done immediately. If reduction works are required, a plan must be put in place without delay. Whilst details are limited at this stage, the announcement of further blood testing for children in the area is welcome, and I await those results. If there is cause for the establishment of a fund to deal with the contamination, I will be the first to lead the charge to ensure the government responds accordingly. If there are changes to federal government legislation required to help in this case or to avoid a repeat of this case, I will be at the forefront of a campaign for those. But the first step is a thorough assessment, performed by the body established to do precisely that—and I call on the New South Wales government to respond in this way immediately.

Governments are now aware of the liability issues around lead smelters and other polluting industries, but this was not the case in the past. We must ensure that, on the one hand, governments of all levels learn from these incidents and impose thorough restrictions when assessing the viability of a development, existing or proposed. But we must ensure that the validity of these decisions cannot be undermined by the lack of one very simple principle: what is in the best interest of the community.

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