Tuesday, 30 April 2024

Western Metropolitan Region

David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (12:58): (800) My constituency question is for the Minister for Environment. My constituent lives in Yarraville and is concerned about the lack of filtration on the ventilation stacks for the proposed West Gate Tunnel. Last year Maribyrnong council declared a health emergency due to poor air quality, noting that hospital admissions for young people with respiratory ailments are 171 per cent above the Australian average. The tunnel is supposed to reduce air pollution by moving vehicles underground, but if vehicle emissions are simply pumped back via unfiltered stacks, it will do nothing to alleviate the problem. The Minister for Planning’s assessment in 2017 stated that the EPA did not recommend emission control equipment, and proposed instead ‘a better targeted, multifaceted approach’ with ‘mitigation measures’ to ‘target localities directly’ affected by the project. My constituent asks: what measures has the government implemented or will it be implementing to reduce air pollution to acceptable levels, and what monitoring is being put in place to ensure these measures are effective?