Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (16:04): I rise to support Mr Davis’s motion that this house opposes any decision by the Andrews Labor government or its agencies to dump toxic soil from the West Gate Tunnel Project at the Maddingley Brown Coal (MBC) mine, Bacchus Marsh, in the Shire of Moorabool. The Bacchus Marsh community are legitimately outraged, and on this side of the house—and I am pleased to have my colleagues Mr Meddick and Mr Grimley also supporting this motion—we can assure the Bacchus Marsh community that we will fight to have their voices heard. It is outrageous that locals are being threatened and told to back off with their opposition. This is scandalous. The failure of this government to release important documents goes to the secrecy of this proposal. What has the government got to hide? Obviously a lot. This government and Transurban have a willing partner in the Calleja company, who own the site and who are obviously very happy to fill their hole with toxic waste.

Mr Melhem talked about scaremongering. What an insult to the Bacchus Marsh people. This government are the scaremongers here. You want to contaminate their land and their lives? No wonder they are scared. Mr Melhem also said this is a psychological issue. I am sure the Bacchus Marsh community will be very pleased to hear that one of their Labor members thinks that this is a psychological issue. It goes to the same point as when the member for Buninyong suggested to some of the community leaders that they were being hysterical. Hysterical! Of course they are. They are extremely worried about what is going to happen to them in the future in Bacchus Marsh.

Clearly there is a problem with the soil in the tunnel, because otherwise the workers would not have had to down tools. Mr Melhem told us that this project may end, because if it is not safe for the workers, it will have to stop. Now, that is very big news. I say, if it is not safe for the workers, it is clearly not safe for the constituents—our constituents in Bacchus Marsh in the electorate of Melton. But we have also heard from Mr Melhem that the location of the waste will be up to the construction companies—Transurban, John Holland, along with WorkSafe, Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) and others. This is also outrageous. Members of Parliament are elected to represent their community. Transurban, John Holland, WorkSafe, Maddingley Brown Coal et cetera—they are not elected. Why should they be the decision-makers in this situation? That is also shocking. Mr Melhem says they are applying the highest possible standards. What a load of rubbish. The government has been dragged screaming and yelling into this debate, and repeated efforts by the council, individuals and Mr Davis have failed to see the government come clean about the proposal to dump toxic waste in Bacchus Marsh.

This privately owned land under construction, Maddingley Brown Coal, sits behind Parwan Creek, which flows into the Werribee River, providing irrigation water for Bacchus Marsh and Werribee. Large residential areas are nearby. Two schools with thousands of students and nursing homes are in close proximity. There is also legitimate and genuine concern regarding the impact toxic soil and its leaching into waterways could have on the significant food production in this area.

The Labor government’s consideration to dump toxic soil in Bacchus Marsh is emblematic of their general conduct towards western Victoria. The regions on one side of the West Gate, which feed those on the other, have been completely neglected and utterly mistreated by a government infiltrated by and beholden to anti-agriculture, pro-inner-city ideologues. Bacchus Marsh, like many areas in western Victoria, is the food bowl of the state. The farmland between Bacchus Marsh and Werribee grows 83 per cent of Victoria’s cauliflower, 53 per cent of Victoria’s broccoli and 34 per cent of Victoria’s lettuce. Dumping toxic soil in their backyard will compromise the quality of this agricultural produce through contamination.

This proposal, as well as a call for mandatory CCTV cameras on farms, deteriorating rural road and rail infrastructure and a lack of bushfire preparedness, should not be viewed as circumstances in isolation. They are part of a wider abandonment of anything, anyone and anywhere beyond the tram tracks of Melbourne. Under the Andrews Labor government there are two Victorias: there is the Victoria of metropolitan Melbourne and the major regional cities, which provide the government with electoral significance and are rewarded with the enormous spending commitments, and then there is the Victoria of the smaller rural and urban fringe towns like Bacchus Marsh, which are largely disadvantaged economically in infrastructure, education and other services, and taken for granted by those inside the tram tracks. Not only does this government ignore the concerns of these communities, but they are determined to force them to deal with the consequence of their mismanagement and bad governance, having been warned of the presence of toxic soil by the EPA in 2017.

The state government should not override legitimate council and community concerns by forcing them to have contaminated soil dumped in their backyard because they were too irresponsible to listen to the advice of their own environmental regulator. This was known before the multibillion-dollar contracts were signed. The location of the toxic waste should have been sorted out and made public for everybody to know, way before the contracts were signed.

The Bacchus Marsh Community Coalition organised two highly energetic public meetings in recent weeks in protest of the government’s proposal. The first, on 25 February, was a public meeting in a local town hall. Bacchus Marsh residents came out in droves, with over 400 people crammed into a hall with only standing room remaining. When asked at the meeting, the members for Melton and Buninyong could not commit to their communities that they would try their best to ensure that no toxic soil was sent to Bacchus Marsh. I reminded the audience that in their 2017 submission to the West Gate Tunnel Project environment effects statement, the Environment Protection Authority Victoria recommended that the project address the management, treatment and disposal of PFAS-contaminated groundwater and land. I was pleased to pledge my support for the community to ensure the government did not dump on Bacchus. It is extraordinary that any contract would have been signed without proper recognition of what was going to happen to the contaminated soil that was known to exist. Transurban did not even show up at the meeting.

The second public meeting was the rally on Tuesday a week ago, which had over 1500 people in attendance. I was the only MP there. I asked the crowd, ‘Where are the local Labor members? Where are the upper house Labor members?’. Labor is completely unwilling to fight for the interests of this community. Where was the Greens member for Northern Metro, who claims to be the champion of environmental causes? The environment risks being destroyed by this proposal. Perhaps standing up for this community does not fulfil the Greens’ socialist objective. The community made the message clear with a variety of placards, one of which appropriately read ‘Dump Labor, not toxic soil’. For too long the Labor Party has taken advantage of electorates west of Melbourne. Every four years Labor expects them to turn up at the ballot box to vote for their dodgy deals, bad economic management and politics of envy. A time will come soon, however, when the west becomes tired of the neglect, recklessness and mismanagement displayed by Labor governments towards them and shows them so at the ballot box.

Kat Barlow from the Bacchus Marsh Community Coalition put it well to the rally, declaring, ‘Dan Andrews, your silence is deafening’. The rally had a huge turnout of schoolchildren. This was not the exploitation of children for political goals, as the left frequently attempts. It was because within close proximity of the proposed site there are two schools—Bacchus Marsh Grammar and Bacchus Marsh College. The closest of these schools is within 500 metres of the site. It is appalling that this government is considering risking the health of these children because they are unwilling to listen to the advice of their own environmental regulator. The government should seek alternative sites that are not within close proximity of schools, residences, food production, aged-care facilities and recreational centres. Bacchus Marsh should not have to bear the consequences of Labor’s mismanagement and bad governance.

There are a plethora of other concerns around this site. On an average day there will be 230 trucks in each direction passing through the Avenue of Honour 24 hours a day, seven days a week for up to two years, transporting toxic soil through the town of Bacchus Marsh to the MBC landfill site every 6 to 7 minutes. This will no doubt significantly deteriorate the quality of the road, not to mention the dust that will coat the famous trees of the Avenue of Honour.

Questions by residents have also been raised in recent weeks about what is currently being sent into the site. I went there. There is a conga line of trucks delivering soil into the site already. What is in those trucks? Nobody seems to know. The government claims that no deal has been made. I saw those trucks, and everybody is asking: what are they dumping already? I have asked the relevant minister on notice and keenly await her response.

Point (2) of the motion correctly notes that proper community consultation and a full environmental assessment have not been undertaken by the West Gate Tunnel authority, Transurban or other entities associated with the project. When will this government realise that setting up pop-up shops during working hours that decline to answer specific questions is not adequate community consultation? Transurban’s spokespersons, along with staff from Maddingley Brown Coal and their civic group consultants, led derisory public information sessions and pop-ups in a local market and festival. This is hardly good enough. The community hub capacity was 40 people alongside 15 project staff.

Transurban reportedly said that no decisions on a site had been made:

The project parties and Maddingley Brown Coal continue to engage with the local community … to hear their feedback and answer their questions about Maddingley Brown Coal’s proposal …

But they refused to answer specific questions from the Moorabool News. Transurban also tried to claim that:

PFAS are not harmful to the public during soil removal, relocation or disposal.

What utter nonsense! The toxicity and danger posed by PFAS chemicals is well established, and I remind the Parliament that it was the presence of PFAS chemicals that led to the closure of the Fiskville CFA training college in my electorate. MBC states that only low levels of PFAS are expected to be found in the soil. However, a recent article in the Age exposed leaked test results that showed the PFAS levels at one point along the tunnel to be between 112 and 2000 times the acceptable amount in drinking water.

We should not risk damaging the health, the environment or the agricultural produce of this area because Labor cannot manage a project. This is yet another example of people on one side of the West Gate impeding the lives of those on the other. Bureaucrats from inside the tram tracks expect to be able to handball their problems off to Bacchus Marsh. Well, we on this side of the house and the Bacchus Marsh community have other ideas.