Asbestos-free Fairbairn Park reopens but Stefaniak didn't know

Back in the start of September RA covered the accidental dumping of asbestos contaminated soil at Fairbairn Park.

Just over a month later and ACT Opposition spokesperson for all things fun Bill Stefaniak has decided to pay attention, saying that only one small part of the motorsports park was affected and that the government is once again neglecting motorsports enthusiasts.

“The very least this Government could do is ensure that Hill Climb and Go-Kart participants are no longer unduly affected by an asbestos closure that in fact would be of no risk to them,” he said.

Jon Stanhope, despite the fact he is neither minister for sport and recreation nor for racing and gaming, put out a release in response to this not long afterwards. It’s not online yet, so is reproduced below, but the gist of it is that actually the government did reopen some of the motorsport facilities and in fact they did this on either Thursday or Friday last week (it just says four days ago).

He also said the asbestos contamination was not the government’s fault and basically told Mr Stefaniak to pull his head in over the whole issue.

My question is that if parts of Fairbairn Park were reopened at the end of last week, how come we didn’t hear anything about it? Or did we and I just wasn’t paying attention?

STEFANIAK SHOULD KEEP HIS EYES ON THE ROAD

Yet again the Liberal Opposition has shown its incapacity to check basic facts, this time rushing out a media release calling for the re-opening of two motorsport facilities, four days after they were re-opened by the Government, Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said today.

“Opposition spokesman on sport Bill Stefaniak must be kicking himself today after firing off a pointless press statement calling for the re-opening of the Hill Climb and Go-Karting at Fairbairn Park, which have been found by the Environment Protection Authority to be unaffected by a recent asbestos contamination of the Fairbairn complex,” Mr Stanhope said.

Environment ACT confirmed today that both the Hill Climb and the Go-Kart track had been re-opened last Friday, on the same day as the report declaring them free of contamination was finalised.

The Environment Protection Authority issued orders for the closure of Fairbairn Park Motorsport tracks last month, following the dumping of contaminated soil on the site.

Mr Stanhope said it was typical of the Liberal Opposition to try to extract some shred of political mileage out of a situation that was inherently apolitical.

“The Government did not create this asbestos contamination problem, and to be frank, the protection of the community from a potential health hazard should be far more important to any government than the pursuit of sporting interests,” Mr Stanhope said.

“The Government has worked closely and cooperatively with Fairbairn Park since the contamination was discovered and is working to ensure that the entire facility is re-opened for local motorsports enthusiasts once investigations and remedial actions have been completed.”