Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on an issue that I have spoken on many, many times in this chamber and in the House, and an issue that I have been campaigning on for the last three months—the lack of decent internet connections throughout most of my electorate. Canberra is facing a real digital divide. Large areas in the north of Canberra are listed on the NBN rollout map. However, very few parts of my electorate, the south of Canberra, appear on that map. In fact, Coombs and Wright—which are greenfields sites—already have NBN up and running. A few streets in a few suburbs in my electorate in the south are on the NBN rollout. The rest of it is just one big blank. Under Labor, every home in the ACT would have had access to a world-class fibre-to-the-premises version of the NBN. However, today, the availability and quality of broadband in some Canberra suburbs, like Monash and Theodore, is the lowest in the country—and we are talking here about the national capital!

I am concerned that this lack of internet access is impeding the ability of Canberrans to maximise opportunities and to realise their full potential, particularly when it comes to small business, educational opportunities and active citizenry and engagement in civil society. These are people like Phuong, who lives in Calwell. Phuong recently contacted me because he was having an extremely difficult time getting a broadband connection to his home. He currently has no internet service despite spending countless hours on the phone and thousands of dollars on temporary solutions. I am quoting now from Phuong:

My three children need online access for their school. We work in an IT area and we need internet access for work and for home use. Our quality of life has greatly suffered because of lack of Internet connection. I want to express my dissatisfaction to the lack of service. I hope that those with authority are aware of this issue so that nobody else has to go through the whole horrible process as me.

Rod, also from my electorate, has written to me saying:

Yet more broken promises from this government. When is the Federal Government really going to govern for all of the people and not its special interest groups? Efficient internet access is no longer a luxury in the modern world, but a necessity. Why do parts of Australia have to go without a proper internet service? Why are some Australians not valued the same as others? Why does this country have to fall behind other countries in this vital area of communication?

Or there is Warwick, who says:

Since Labor introduced the NBN development, I, like most other people who use the Internet, have been looking forward to this service, as it provides a better service at lower user cost. Unfortunately, everything came to a standstill as the current Government dithered around deciding how to do things cheaper and faster. Now it seems we're further from this service than ever and if it does arrive it will be an inferior product that will require upgrading as the old copper connections deteriorate.

Or there is Rhiannon, who says:

I have a clearer Skype connection in Cambodia than here in my own home!!!

I am talking, Madam Deputy Speaker, about the nation's capital. I am talking about 20 kilometres from here. There is Honour, who says:

One more reason why this government is failing Australians.

To me, that sentence really sums up the situation in my electorate. Canberrans are sick and tired of being impeded by their lack of internet. Since I held a community forum with the shadow communications minister Jason Clare in June, I have been contacted by hundreds of Canberrans who are extremely frustrated with their lack of internet access. I have had hundreds of people who have signed my petition calling on the Liberal government to prioritise Canberra's NBN rollout. As I said, for most of my electorate it is just one big blank space. We are not even on the map. We have no idea when we are going to be getting NBN. When we were in government, the NBN was going to be rolled out this year and next year here in Canberra in my electorate. But we do not know when it is going to happen under this government. We have those couple of suburbs, Coombs and Wright, that already have it. Denman Prospect probably will, too, because it is a greenfields site, and there are a few parts of Phillip, O'Malley and Isaacs that have it. But the rest of the electorate is just one big blank space.

What is so frustrating is the fact that in the north of Canberra, Gungahlin has the NBN—and has had it for some time—thanks to the Labor government. As I said earlier, it means that we have this huge digital divide across Canberra. We have a huge discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots in the fact that the people of Gungahlin are now connected to the NBN and have the ability to work from home and to set up small businesses that have world-class internet connection. They can do their homework from home and engage in educational activities—as one would expect in the nation's capital in the 21st century. They can engage actively as citizens of our community, by watching what is going on in the news and by watching what is going on on Twitter and in social media, and by tapping in to the resources that are available now on so many websites.

They can actively engage in small business, in education and in citizenry opportunities. They can realise their potential because they have access to this nbn world-class internet. Unfortunately, as I said, in my electorate there is one, big blank space with nothing. Apart from Coombs, Wright and those streets in some parts of Woden and Weston, that is it. And we have no idea when we are going to get it.

What does this mean? You have heard from some of my constituents who have told me about what the frustration of the lack of the nbn means for their lives. There is the cost it means for Phuong. I did not go through the details there, but he listed the various attempts he has made over the years to try to get a decent internet connection. It has cost him thousands. He has listed the endless cost, the endless phone calls and the endless amount of time he has had to put in to try to get a decent internet connection, just so his kids can do their homework, so that he can pay his bills at home and so that they can engage in civil society.

The other day I had a mobile office at Calwell. Again, Calwell has a shocking accessibility and speed rate—one of the lowest in the whole country—as does most of that south-east part of Tuggeranong. I had a petition going on the nbn, to actually get us put on the rollout map—that would be nice. We have a new prime minister, the 'prime minister of infrastructure', the 'prime minister of communications' and the 'prime minister of technology'; it would be really nice if we could actually get the nation's capital connected.

I had this mobile office going down at Calwell on the weekend and met a gentleman from Calwell there. He told me about the fact that he is a lecturer at Charles Sturt University, which as we all know is in Bathurst. He also has his own small business, and he is finding it absolutely impossible to be able to connect and keep up to date with what is going on at the university.

At the nbn forum that I mentioned before, that I hosted with the shadow minister for communications, I heard from many people. One single mum told me that her son is falling behind because he cannot access the internet at home, so he cannot do his homework. It means that she has to spend countless hours in the library after she has been working all day just so her son can get access to the internet. I heard of one couple who have to stand on the roof of their garage to get a connection, and met another gentleman who would actually like to work from home—to run a small business from home. This is average, normal everyday stuff for other parts of Australia but in my electorate people cannot do it. This gentleman now has the cost of hiring an office space so that he can actually run a business. Ideally, he would like to run that business from home. If he were connected to the internet he would be able to run that business from home, but he has actually had to hire an office space just so that he can be connected to the internet and run his business.

The productivity costs that take place as the result from us not being able to be connected to the internet and the nbn are just phenomenal—not just in terms of lost productivity but also in terms of lost opportunity, and also in terms of the loss of realisation of the full potential of my constituents.

So, yes—I have a really big grievance. I want Canberra on the nbn rollout map, and I want it on it now. My constituents wanted it yesterday. So I will continue to lobby for these Canberrans because we must get placed on the nbn rollout map and we must be on it now. (Time expired)

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight, I rise to talk about a most appalling and unforgiveable decision by the New South Wales Planning Assessment Commission—to approve what is known as the Moorebank concrete recycling facility. They simply failed to take into account that neither the assessment nor the modelling of fine particulate matter referred to as PM2.5 had been undertaken by the proponent, despite the fact that this failure was specifically pointed out to them during the public meeting. They ignored what happened at the public meeting and approved this even though there was no assessment and no modelling of fine particulate matter PM2.5.

Why is this so wrong? Firstly, in New South Wales there is a statutory requirement to model and assess all sources of air pollution, and that is exactly what clause 3.1 of Approved Methods for the modelling and assessment of air pollutants in New South Walesstates. It is simple. If you are having a development and you have a known source of air pollution emissions, you must assess it and you must model it. Yet, for unknown reasons, neither was done for this.

When we talk about fine particulate matter, this is referring to the microscopic solid or liquid matter suspended in the Earth's atmosphere. It is important to note that particulate matter is not one particular chemical substance; its sources are extremely varied. It is classified by its particulate size rather than what it is made of. The way we measure it is by PM2.5, PM10 and PM0.1, known as ultrafine particles. Particulate matter is a known emission from a concrete recycling plant. When you smash concrete up into small pieces to recycle it, you release dust and particulate matter in the atmosphere. There are numerous scientific studies that make this very clear. So, from the outset, there is simply no excuse for not modelling the fine particulate matter.

Why should this be of specific concern to us? Why should we care about particulate matter as air pollution in our atmosphere? We hear all the time about carbon pollution. Of course, when people talk about carbon pollution, it is actually carbon dioxide, CO2, that clear odourless gas. Particulate matter is the actual grit and the dirt in the atmosphere, as I said before. It is our deadliest form of air pollution because it has the ability to penetrate unfiltered deep into the lungs and bloodstream, causing permanent DNA mutations, heart attacks and premature deaths.

Recent studies have found evidence that exposure to particulate pollution causes lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke. In fact, on 17 October 2003, the International Agency for Research on Cancer announced it had classified particulate matter as a carcinogen to human beings, based on sufficient exposure to the causes of lung cancer. In 2005, the World Health Organization stated:

Several key findings that have emerged in recent years merit special mention. Firstly, the evidence for … particulate matter (PM) indicates that there are risks to health at concentrations currently found in many cities in developed countries. Moreover, as research has not identified thresholds below which adverse effects do not occur, it must be stressed that the guideline values provided here cannot fully protect human health.

Secondly, an increasing range of adverse health effects has been linked to air pollution, and at ever-lower concentrations. This is especially true of airborne particulate matter.

We have a cancer-causing agent. We have a requirement that it must be modelled and assessed under the guidelines. The failure to do was highlighted to the Planning Assessment Commission, and they just completely ignored it. This is absolutely outrageous.

I now turn to particulate matter in general and why fine particulate matter is even more deadly. The New South Wales Environment Protection Authority, the EPA, in a document entitled Managing particles andimproving air quality in NSWstate:

The particles of most concern are fine particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5). Unlike larger particles, these smaller particles invisible to the naked eye can be breathed deep into the lungs and even pass into the bloodstream.

The New South Wales department of environment state that the smaller PM2.5 particulates are considered more dangerous to human health as they are more easily drawn deeply into the lungs and that they are closely linked with serious health impacts, particularly heart and lung disease. Again, it is the most dangerous form of particulate pollution; it was not modelled and not assessed, and the Planning Assessment Commission closed their eyes and their ears to this. The folly of this is simply unbelievable, especially when it was drawn to their attention. You could understand the Planning Assessment Commission being ignorant of the facts and not having any understanding of this matter, but for them to ignore the matter when it was drawn to their attention is unforgivable.

Not only was there a failure to consider this matter, but let us have a look at what the specific standards on the ground are—so should we be concerned? We know we have standards which are being considered at the moment under the National Environment Protection (Ambient Air Quality) Measure, known as the NEPM. At the moment we have an advisory standard of an annual average of eight microns per cubic metre. That is what the World Health Organization says and that is what our environment protection agencies say we should set as the maximum threshold—eight microns per cubic metre. In fact, the New South Wales EPA says that its view is that the 2.5 threshold, which is the NEPM reporting standard, should be adopted as the compliance standard. We hope that by 31 December this year we will have a standard of eight microns per cubic metre, with the plan over time to reduce it to seven microns if we think eight microns is too high. That is where we need to be.

Where are we in Liverpool, where this development is going ahead? Have a look at the Liverpool air quality monitoring site data. Over the past calendar year, the average has been 8.6. The particulate matter exposure in Liverpool is already above what our authorities, including health authorities, recommend it should be. We are already substantially above, and yet here we have a development that is going to add to that and make the situation worse. This is known by the Planning Assessment Commission, and they have just closed their eyes and closed their ears and allowed this development to go ahead. This is an appalling situation. Thankfully the Liverpool council, I understand, is appealing this decision. We cannot have the Planning Assessment Commission failing to look at the evidence, failing to consider the relevant data, especially when it involves carcinogenic substances and especially when the level of the substances in the atmosphere in the local area is already above what it is recommended it should be. And they want to take it higher! This is simply outrageous.

I would like to make a few recommendations for the Planning Assessment Commission, because they have failed in their duty. They have failed to give this project due consideration. It goes to the competency of our planning authorities if they are this appalling and make such flawed decisions. The decision, firstly, must be overturned and the approval for this facility must be withdrawn. The proponent should be required to undertake a detailed assessment and modelling of fine particulate matter from the proposed facility and the effect on the local environment. That is what they should have done months or years ago, as the guidelines state. Secondly, the detailed assessment of the effects on the local community should not be undertaken just by theoretical modelling alone. We already have concrete recycling plants in many places around this country. We have the technology now to set up monitoring stations near those plants that enable us to record exactly what fine particulate matter is being emitted. Let us look at the situation on the ground at existing concrete recycling plants rather than go through some theoretical modelling to come up with something. That is what the public deserve.

Nevertheless, irrespective of that, we know PM2.5 in the area is already above the level it should be. If there is one iota of a chance that the local community will be affected by a carcinogenic substance, the Planning and Assessment Commission should knock this proposal on the head. If we want to have concrete recycling plants, by all means let us have them but let us not have them next to residential suburbs where the air pollution has the potential to adversely affect people's health.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further grievances, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.