Wednesday, 22 June 2022

Statements on reports, papers and petitions

Ombudsman

Investigation into Environment Protection Authority Decisions on West Gate Tunnel Project Spoil Disposal

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (17:15): I stand to talk today about the Victorian Ombudsman Investigation into Environment Protection Authority Decisions on West Gate Tunnel Project Spoil Disposal. There are a number of good things to come out of this report—firstly, that the spoil coming from the West Gate Tunnel Project is well below the levels at which the regulations had been developed; and secondly, that the EPA has accepted the recommendations by the Ombudsman and will review their approach to community engagement.

This report does raise a number of other questions. In April 2017 John Holland consortium was selected as the preferred tenderer to design and construct the West Gate Tunnel. This project includes tunnelling under extensive industrial sites in the west. It includes the area near Coode Island, and that is the site of one of our worst industrial fires, which 200 tonnes of firefighting foam containing PFAS was used to extinguish. It also includes the old Mobil refinery. A report called the Golder report was included as part of the environmental effects statement for the project. However, this report was only intended as a guide. It never tested for PFAS. In 2018 the consortium had another report prepared to determine the contamination status of the ground to be tunnelled. It did not sample rock and soil for PFAS at the depth of the tunnel, only groundwater. Apparently West Gate Tunnel Project officers told the EPA that the consortium could not take further samples, as it could not access the bores on private properties or under roadways—and we wonder why the cost of this project has blown out by $4 billion. How could they have ever accurately provided a tender when they did not know what and where the contamination was?

Next there is the issue of the EPA’s role in the matter. The EPA is an independent regulator. They were actually pressured to become involved, and let me quote the report:

… it appears the EPA was … pressured by the Working Group to assist in the development of bespoke environmental regulations at the behest of a private contractor.

And I quote:

It is also problematic for the EPA as an independent regulator to be so influenced by the MTIA and WGTP. While the disposal of spoil from the WGTP may have been an inter-agency issue, it should not have fallen on the EPA as the regulator to ‘fix’ the Government’s contractual problem.

The EPA should never have had to resolve a contractual issue. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal advice about the best way to solve those contractual issues. If the MTIA, the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority responsible for rolling out the West Gate Tunnel, the level crossing removals, the Metro Tunnel, North East Link, Melbourne Airport rail and the Suburban Rail Loop, are not capable of sorting out contractual issues, what hope have they got delivering these projects?

Finally, there is the issue of community engagement. The EPA decided that the community was so outraged and the outrage was just so great that a meeting with the community would be a waste of time. The community had to make an FOI request. They had to take legal action because they were not provided with any information. This government has legislated that local government must undertake extensive community engagement. They have gone to the extent of making local government undertake deep-dive delivery engagement, yet their own authorities and their own contractors do not follow the same rule—complete hypocrisy. Had this government engaged with the community who had genuine concerns about spoil and the risk to their health, had the MTIA engaged with the community, had the contractors engaged with the community, the anger and the worry would have been alleviated. If not, there would have been more of a level of understanding because all the community wanted was the information.