Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria)

My constituency question is to the minister for the environment and concerns the process by which Maddingley Brown Coal yesterday received EPA approval for its bid to receive contaminated soil from the West Gate Tunnel Project.

As the minister must by now know, the MBC site is completely unsuited to this project given the proximity of housing, schools and agricultural land, as well as a transport infrastructure which simply could not cope with projected traffic volumes.

My question surrounds the approval granted by the EPA on the basis of the tunnel boring spoil regulations introduced in June this year. EPA director Tim Eaton claimed on 3AW this morning that his organisation was not responsible for the regulations. Yet the Environment Protection Act 1970 and the regulations themselves both expressly require regulations to be made ‘on the recommendation of the Authority’.

Minister, who actually wrote these regulations, and just what does Mr Eaton’s denial say about the clear interference of your department in the supposedly independent EPA?

Sitting suspended 12.54 pm until 2.07 pm.