Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As has been indicated by a number of speakers, this bill repeals the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995 so that the ACT can implement the updated Australian Dangerous Goods Code and the associated model legislation into its own legislative arrangements in the same way as other states and territories. Let me say at the outset that I believe it is somewhat ‘Big Brotherish’ that the federal government does have the capacity to legislate or overturn legislation in relation to the territory assemblies. Therefore, I very much welcome the fact that the territory is going to be able to, at least in name, be the architect of its own destiny in relation to this because, as we know, this comes about through a national scheme of legislation. The Australian Dangerous Goods Code sets out detailed instructions for the safe transport of dangerous goods by road and rail. It is based on model regulations set out by the United Nations which harmonise with existing regulations in sea and air transport. Until the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Act 1995 is repealed, the ACT remains powerless to move on its own.

Dangerous goods are around us in every aspect of our daily lives and yet I expect people do not pay as much attention to them as they perhaps ought. Dangerous goods and materials can cause or accelerate combustion, have acute toxic effects, have the ability to corrode skin or other materials, or have a capacity to harm the environment, cause asphyxiation, present temperature or pressure hazards or react with other materials that can then do any of the above. I indicated that people are generally unaware of them. I will relate a couple of examples from my own experience, firstly as an employee of a national airline where I was engaged in transporting dangerous goods by air and discovered, I guess somewhat to my amusement, that there is an internationally known brand of cola beverage who very jealously guard their recipe and ship it to countries where it is going to be made in part A and part B, and one of the parts—I cannot remember whether it is part A or B now—is too dangerous to be transported by air. Yet we quaff this material by the hundreds of thousands of litres a day, I suspect. But one of those two parts, on its own, is too dangerous to be transported by air.

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