Mr HIGGINS - 2012-11-27
Can you provide details of how the quarantine waste from our airport is handled to allow the operation of international flights? Is the minister aware of any issues which may prevent aircraft operating out of Darwin?
ANSWER
I thank the member for Daly for his question. I understand you are very interested in tourism in the Northern Territory. It is about time we started getting to some of the other questions when walking around with a bucket and broom trying to sweep up the Labor mess because around every corner is a Labor mess wherever we look. This is another important issue in relation to the Labor mess.
Those who are monitoring the media would be well aware of my decision to close the incinerator at East Arm port some weeks ago. The incinerator at East Arm port was an important infrastructure which processed and destroyed quarantine matter as it is a biosecurity hazard. Eighty percent of that matter is material off aircraft, 20% comes off cruise ships, and is generally the food leftovers on flights from overseas.
Those biosecurity measures saw the disposal of that waste through an incinerator at East Arm Wharf. I have a picture of the incinerator in case anyone has not seen it.
That incinerator was first commissioned as a temporary facility for a two-year period in 2006. In 2008, the then Labor government was advised it did not meet environmental standards and had to be replaced. It sought and received an exemption for two years to take it to 2010. In 2010, it was advised by what was, supposedly, the independent EPA the government supported, ‘You have to get rid of it’. In 2010, the same Labor government, the one which attracts all the Green preferences, Green support and puts its hand up as a great environmentalist with the dioxins and furans polluting the Port of Darwin through this incinerator, sought another exemption.
It did not care about the environment, it got another extension. In 2012, here I am as the Minister for Transport and for Infrastructure, in the job for six weeks, and the Chief Minister has moved to make the EPA fully independent. We have a new boss who writes to me saying, ‘Minister, I will let you know of a failure of Labor. It never had a proper environmentally-friendly operating incinerator at the wharf.’
I investigated it. I received some information on it …
Ms Lawrie interjecting.
Mr GILES: I hear the Opposition Leader harping on because she knows - she was the minister at one of those times, and the deputy was also the minister. They have environmental blood on their hands. Here I am, six weeks into the job, get the information and close it. They could not do the job in six years. It took me six weeks to shut the incinerator.
Mr McCARTHY: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I am wondering whether the minister will talk about the storm water issues the CLP created when it built the port.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Barkly, please be seated. Minister, you have the call.
Mr GILES: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is hard to understand what Whiskers is saying. It took me six weeks to solve a problem Labor had for six years: environmentally unsatisfactory solutions at our port. We now have a biosecurity problem - we do not have an answer for it at this point of time - which we are working on. You should be ashamed!
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, your time has expired.
ANSWER
I thank the member for Daly for his question. I understand you are very interested in tourism in the Northern Territory. It is about time we started getting to some of the other questions when walking around with a bucket and broom trying to sweep up the Labor mess because around every corner is a Labor mess wherever we look. This is another important issue in relation to the Labor mess.
Those who are monitoring the media would be well aware of my decision to close the incinerator at East Arm port some weeks ago. The incinerator at East Arm port was an important infrastructure which processed and destroyed quarantine matter as it is a biosecurity hazard. Eighty percent of that matter is material off aircraft, 20% comes off cruise ships, and is generally the food leftovers on flights from overseas.
Those biosecurity measures saw the disposal of that waste through an incinerator at East Arm Wharf. I have a picture of the incinerator in case anyone has not seen it.
That incinerator was first commissioned as a temporary facility for a two-year period in 2006. In 2008, the then Labor government was advised it did not meet environmental standards and had to be replaced. It sought and received an exemption for two years to take it to 2010. In 2010, it was advised by what was, supposedly, the independent EPA the government supported, ‘You have to get rid of it’. In 2010, the same Labor government, the one which attracts all the Green preferences, Green support and puts its hand up as a great environmentalist with the dioxins and furans polluting the Port of Darwin through this incinerator, sought another exemption.
It did not care about the environment, it got another extension. In 2012, here I am as the Minister for Transport and for Infrastructure, in the job for six weeks, and the Chief Minister has moved to make the EPA fully independent. We have a new boss who writes to me saying, ‘Minister, I will let you know of a failure of Labor. It never had a proper environmentally-friendly operating incinerator at the wharf.’
I investigated it. I received some information on it …
Ms Lawrie interjecting.
Mr GILES: I hear the Opposition Leader harping on because she knows - she was the minister at one of those times, and the deputy was also the minister. They have environmental blood on their hands. Here I am, six weeks into the job, get the information and close it. They could not do the job in six years. It took me six weeks to shut the incinerator.
Mr McCARTHY: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I am wondering whether the minister will talk about the storm water issues the CLP created when it built the port.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Barkly, please be seated. Minister, you have the call.
Mr GILES: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is hard to understand what Whiskers is saying. It took me six weeks to solve a problem Labor had for six years: environmentally unsatisfactory solutions at our port. We now have a biosecurity problem - we do not have an answer for it at this point of time - which we are working on. You should be ashamed!
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, your time has expired.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016