Mackay West State School Asbestos
Friday, 26 February 2010 10:51
Hansard 25th February, 2010
Adjournment Speech
Dr Bruce FleggMember for MoggillMackay West State School, Asbestos
Dr FLEGG (Moggill—LNP) (7.10 pm): I rise to speak about the issue of asbestos removal at Mackay West State School. At this school, workmen under the auspices of QBuild were seen sanding back known asbestos into the condition described as ‘full friable’, the most dangerous form of asbestos. The resulting dust which contained asbestos fibres was then inadequately cleaned up, including with the use of a domestic vacuum cleaner. Workmen were not wearing appropriate safety gear, and I have seen the video of this practice.Minister Schwarten tried to reassure the parliament that children would not be put at risk, but there is clearly a risk to children if free asbestos fibres were released into a school vicinity, as happened in this case, and there was certainly a risk to the workers. I see that Minister Schwarten has called an independent investigation. The minister’s history is that his only interest is in whitewashing asbestos. I note that he did not release any terms of reference for his independent investigation, and members can be safely assured that those terms of reference will not allow the issue to be fully investigated.
There is an even more sinister aspect to this. An asbestos remover with 20 years experience in asbestos removal technology who witnessed and attempted to report this—and he reported it through the correct channels, to Workplace Health and Safety, Parsons Brinckerhoff and QBuild—was allegedly threatened by the QBuild contract manager. He was told to ‘shut your (expletive) mouth’ and he was told that this never happened. Subsequently, a secondary boycott of his business has allegedly been called whereby his clients have been contacted by QBuild and told not to do business with him, resulting in the loss of clients and the loss of contracts.
This sort of activity in the asbestos removal industry is unfortunately all too common, but in my view this aspect of intimidation and secondary boycott may be official misconduct. Unlike MinisterSchwarten, I have today written to the CMC and asked it to investigate the official misconduct aspect of this area. There are systemic problems in the asbestos removal industry, particularly in our schools, as we also saw in Caningeraba State School. As an opposition, we hear many such complaints but because contractors fear that what happened in Mackay will happen to them frequently the matters do not go any further. Licence requirements for asbestos removers are weak. It is very similar to the ceiling insulation industry, because shonky removers have moved into a highly lucrative business.