The Greens’ Shane Rattenbury has been rattling Simon Corbell’s cage on why a week later we’re yet to find out what we were breathing on Friday in the wake of the massive chemical fire in Mitchell (bearing in mind the plant was storing one of the worst pollutants known to man and the smoke pictures appear to indicate not all of the fire was of a uniform fuel or temperature).
“It’s now been a week since the fire, and we know the Government received test results for the Mitchell area back last Sunday – why haven’t they been made publically available?” Mr Rattenbury said.
“The government promised transparency, and yet a week after the fire the community has not received the information they need to be reassured that there are no risks.
“I would ask the Government to release the full results, including the raw data, with details of where the samples were taken from.
“The best way to reassure the community that there is no risk is to release those results –the ACT Government has likely had all the data since Tuesday and yet still nothing has been made publically available.
“I’m concerned the Government are spending too much time ‘contextualising’ the results, whereas better community accountability would mean they just released them,” said Mr Rattenbury.
Simon Corbell has very quickly moved to explain why the data needs massaging:
“These are complex scientific measurements of chemical substances and I want to assure the Canberra community that these tests have been carried out thoroughly,” said Mr Corbell.
“It is imperative that the test results from this incident are accompanied with a full explanation of what they mean for the Canberra community.”
“I am committed to ensuring the results are clear, accurate and transparent. I maintained throughout this incident that all test results would be made public once they were completed and I stand by this commitment.”
“Final quality assurance from the NSW Environment Protection Authority is currently underway and once this is completed the Government will make the results, including the explanation, available to the public.”
“At this stage the relevant Authorities are finalising their work and the results may be available to the community as early as this afternoon.”
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