Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak tonight on the issue of communities and, more specifically, the relationship between communities and economic development. In particular, I will be speaking tonight about the community of Kilburn, in my electorate of Adelaide. This is a working-class community with more than their fair share of battlers. They have a lot of pride and community spirit but they also have their fair share of challenges. One of these challenges is pollution.

Residents in this community have been complaining for years about pollution from local industry amidst fears that their health was suffering as a result. They formed the Kilburn Residents Environment Group, which is led by a remarkable local man, Mr Emmanuel Psaila. The residents of Kilburn are victims of poor planning decisions of the past. These decisions have led to circumstances where industry, including a foundry, is situated alongside public housing. I believe that we must take every opportunity to address poor planning decisions of the past and not entrench them for the future.

Finally, in 2005, after much lobbying by residents and their elected representatives, the state’s Environment Protection Authority agreed to do some research and monitor pollution levels in the area. In the meantime, however, one of the local industrial sites, the Bradken foundry, devised a plan to significantly expand their operations. The foundry seeks to triple their output from 12,500 tonnes to 32,000 tonnes per annum. This is a massive expansion by any measure. This project was granted major project status by the state government—and I will return to this in a minute.

Meanwhile, the residents and elected representatives from all three tiers of government were growing increasingly curious about the results of the EPA environmental testing. Eventually, I applied under freedom of information legislation for access to the test results. After trawling through the 3,440 documents that I obtained, it is no exaggeration to say that these results were deeply disturbing. The results showed that, amongst other problems, national environmental standards were being breached in Kilburn, where PM10, or small particulates, was at alarming levels.

Whilst this may not sound like much to you or me, I did a little digging around to research what the consequences of these heightened PM10 levels are. I found, in a paper prepared for the National Environment Protection Council, that increased levels of PM10 lead to increases in total mortality as well as in mortality from respiratory or cardiac disease, increases in hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiac conditions, increases in hospital casualty and medical surgery visits for asthma and other respiratory conditions, and increases in the daily prevalence of respiratory symptoms.

Despite these shocking results and despite the fact that we are yet to determine the effect that this pollution has had, if any, on the local community, the approval process for the expansion of the Bradken foundry continues. Surely we must first examine the consequences and determine if Kilburn is an appropriate place for industry in the future. I have made my position quite clear. I believe that, whilst it is fantastic that this company is doing so well and seeks to expand and create more jobs, this expanded foundry should be situated in one of Adelaide’s designated industrial precincts. In the last few weeks, I have sought out the views of the residents of Kilburn for inclusion in my submission to the planning approval process. I have been inundated with an astonishing number of responses.

I want to share a couple of things that the residents have shared with me. One resident wrote in saying: ‘I have asthma and often suffer from the bad smell around my area. I need walking every day, but sometimes the polluted air makes me feel sick and I have to go back inside the house.’ Another said: ‘Every month, my children need to go to the doctor because their lungs are affected by the pollution. They have asthma and have problems breathing. I often get headaches, and I think it is because of the smell and the noise.’ Further, one resident wrote: ‘I have lived in Kilburn since 1963. I came here with a clean bill of health. With everything in the air, I contracted asthma, which has resulted in me being on 24/7 oxygen and finding it very hard to breathe.’

I understand that this will be a tough issue for the state government and, though we have gone through some pretty rocky patches throughout this process, I do appreciate the manner in which they—and in particular the Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Paul Holloway, and his department—have listened to my constant badgering and ensured open communication between the levels. I have always been adamant that I will fight for the best interests of the community that I represent—no matter who that means opposing or what party they are in. My message tonight is this: we as elected members must absolutely work for continued economic development. But this prosperity must have a purpose. The point of economic development is to enrich our lives and increase our wellbeing—not to come at the expense of this. (Time expired)