Roads Amendment (Lane Cove Tunnel Filtration) Bill 2007

Debate resumed from 18 October 2007.

Mr GREG SMITH (Epping) [11.03 a.m.]: I am pleased to speak on the bill of my good friend the member for Lane Cove, the Roads Amendment (Lane Cove Tunnel Filtration) Bill 2007. The object of the bill is to require pollution filtration equipment to be installed and maintained that will remove particulate matter and toxic gases from air in the Lane Cove Tunnel and air exiting the tunnel. Commuters along Epping Road, who have been deprived of their highway by its narrowing from three lanes to one lane each way, are being funnelled or forced into the Lane Cove Tunnel and subjected to the toxic gases and other materials that will harm their health.

A man who has played a significant role in defending citizens of the state against the toxins found in unfiltrated tunnels is Associate Professor Ray Kearney, the Chairman of the Lane Cove Tunnel Action Group. He has recently retired as Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Sydney University. I know Ray Kearney and his wife, Elma, very well because we collaborated many years ago when I lived in Lane Cove, before I went to Epping, to stop a massive expansion of what was then called the Lifesavers factory in Lane Cove West. We had other problems with fumes from the tunnel invading local streets of Lane Cove West and were facing the prospect of having a chocolate factory there. There was something wonky about the chocolate factory proposal and it was ultimately moved to Melbourne. We won and it was because of people like Ray Kearney and others in that area—

Mr Michael Daley: Forcing business interstate was a victory, was it?

Mr GREG SMITH: Yes, it was.

ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Thomas George): Order! The Parliamentary Secretary will have an opportunity to contribute to the debate.

Mr GREG SMITH: The environment of Lane Cove at that stage was reasonably under control, because we got rid of the prospect of a dangerous pollutant from chocolate fumes. It was bad enough to have musk and peppermint; we did not want chocolate as well! Professor Kearney says that unfiltered tunnels are poisoning people. He says that recent documents tabled in Parliament confirm that there will be a tenfold increased risk of cancer for people at risk, such as the elderly, the young, and unborn babies. He was quoted as follows:

"New South Wales Health has confirmed what has been studied overseas i.e. that the elderly already exposed to the current levels of pollution in Sydney's air-shed have a higher risk of heart attacks" Dr Kearney said. "NSW Health also showed that pregnant mothers exposed to Sydney's polluted airshed already have quantifiable impacts on the developing fetus."

Dr Kearney says that the annual average of PM2.5 in Sydney's air-shed is already exceeding the National prescribed standard for PM2.5 of 8 micrograms per cubic metre. Current annual average of PM2.5 in Sydney's air-shed is over 10.5 micrograms per cubic metre and is increasing. This is a level which carries a highly significant risk to the unborn.

John Lee, director of major projects at Lane Cove Council, says in-tunnel filtration is necessary for all Sydney's tunnels and specifically for the Lane Cove Tunnel, into which motorists are being forced. He says there is a lot of medical evidence that suggests there is a general link between poor health and vehicle emissions and that filtration is a necessity. Mr Curran of RAPS, Residents Against Polluting Stacks, has closely researched the issue of tunnel filtration from a community health perspective and points to the results of over 300 papers on the health effects of fine particles and vehicle emissions published in the last 10 years which show that vehicle emissions are bad for health. He is quoted as saying:

"They (unfiltered tunnels) will have real impacts both to motorists using them and to local residents," he said.

"The findings of the in-tunnel health study by NSW Health are based on only one trip in isolation. Most motorists make at least two per day and may make many more. Even one trip was a risk to asthmatics."

"Tunnels might be good for traffic but unfiltered tunnels are bad for health," Mr Curran said.

I heartily agree with Mr Curran's comments. The other aspect I would like to speak about is that the concern is not just about the dumping of waste emissions or polluted materials in the tunnel; it is also the dumping outside the tunnel. My learned friend the member for Lane Cove has eloquently explained how that is affecting a very wide area of the North Shore and the north-west. The building of this tunnel, with forced exposure to fumes and emissions, is taking away the right of passage of citizens. Under section 5 (1) of the Roads Act 1993 a member of the public is entitled, as of right, to pass along a public road—whether on foot, in a vehicle or otherwise—and to drive stock or other animals along the public road. The Parliament can change any common law right, but in this case there has not been a proper debate to justify the closure of lanes.

This was imposed on the citizens of the north-west by a Government that does not care about the citizens of that area. It has shown that in many ways, for example, with the charging of full tolls for people who use the roads in that area whereas in some areas where Labor members hold seats residents only pay the GST component of 10 per cent and get a rebate of the balance of the toll. I suggest that the activity of the Government in this case, forcing people into the tunnel where they are exposed to dangerous fumes and the taking away of our rights to passage on Epping Road, marks a continuation of the bushranger approach adopted by people such as Dick Turpin, Ned Kelly, Ben Hall, Captain Moonlight and fabled others, including Jack Doolan, the wild colonial boy. I assumed we had grown out of those unlawful times. We have the legal right to use the highway provided we do not obstruct it with demonstrations—and we have certain rights in that regard. I understand that there may be massive demonstrations occurring on these roads as time goes on and as people get fed up with these bushranger tactics.

The rights we have are being flouted by the bushranger Iemma Government with its further lane closures. The Roads and Traffic Authority falsely advertised on its website that the changes, which reduce the number of private vehicle lanes, were improvements. Improvements? Nothing could be further from the truth. We are taken away from the fresh air of Epping Road and forced into a tunnel where we are exposed to toxins. That is an improvement? This is a Dr Goebbels type analysis of improvement. The closures have been designed to funnel drivers who wish to get to their destinations in a reasonable time because the Epping Road is so chock-a-block full of cars, with only one lane each way, and trips take about three times as long as they used to. It used to take me an hour and a quarter in peak-hour to drive from Epping, along Epping Road, to the city. Now it would take two hours at least. Epping is not that far from the city. If I go through the tunnel it is much quicker, but it is also very expensive and I am exposed to toxins.

This action discriminates against motorists from the north-west and it is a disgrace that the member for Ryde, Mr Watkins, has not made one peep in support of residents of his electorate who use Epping Road and those residents who use Victoria Road, which has now been absolutely inundated with motorists who do not want to go through the tunnels and pay tolls. It is a disgrace! He is never here. He is never here to defend the decision of the Government because he is too scared to face accusations that he has let his people down—and he has, and continues to do so.

The Iemma Government has not undertaken lane closures on highways near the western Sydney tollways such as on the Hume Highway and on the Great Western Highway, yet those who use those tollways receive a rebate and only pay 10 per cent of the toll. Those who use the Epping tunnel are up for the full toll, as is the case for people using the M7, the M2, the Harbour Bridge, and the Harbour tunnel. Apart from the controversial and disastrous Cross City Tunnel, where lane and road closures had to be abandoned due to voter and media backlash, I have been unable to find any comparable act of modern-day bushranging on our highways.

The Government extracted about $70 million from the builders of this tunnel for the right to build it. It would not allow three lanes each way as the consortium wanted, which would have been a much more sensible approach given that traffic into the city is increasing, and it got the consortium to delay the finishing of the tunnel by bribing it with a $25 million donation. Otherwise the voters of Ryde would have thrown Mr Watkins out on his ear, as he deserved, because he had not defended them. Consequences of the tunnel opening before the election would have meant other seats also would have been lost because motorists using Epping Road would have realised that they were being subjected to bushranging hold-ups—with guns at their heads—to use the tunnel to get to the city in a reasonable time, as well as being exposed to fumes.

It was absolute bribery by the Government of a private consortium, which had already been held up for $70 million. And when did the tunnel open? The day after the election—funny thing, that. It was suddenly ready. Ready on a Sunday! What happened on the Saturday? I suppose they paid everybody overtime to work on the road and get the dust off everything so that they could have a ball in the tunnel and raise some money to help pay the $25 million! I think the money went to charity actually. Drivers who use Epping Road and the Lane Cove tunnel are being unfairly treated, like the wealthy squatters who were robbed by Jack Doolan. Lawful methods of stopping this bushranging must be encouraged, but I think the voters will ultimately take to the streets.

Mr Michael Daley: Point of order: In respect of relevance, we have given the member for Epping an incredible amount of latitude, in contravention of Standing Order 76. This is a very simple bill. It is a bill to amend the Roads Act to acquire pollution filtration equipment. It has nothing to do with the matters that the member for Epping has been proselytising about unsuccessfully for the past five minutes, and I ask that you draw him back to the leave of the bill.

Mr GREG SMITH: I have heard that and I will take it seriously.

ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Thomas George): Order! I ask the member for Epping to confine his remarks to the bill as he concludes his speech.

Mr GREG SMITH: On the issue of pollution and filtration, I was inspired to write a song, which is to the familiar tune of The Road to Gundagai:

Epping Road's now a track
And we want our three lanes back,
Give us back our Epping Road.

Where the two lanes are blocked off,
For young and old to see,
Our free road's a funnel,
The tunnel costs big fees.

Oh, no more will I roam
Now the fumes are spreading home,
Now Iemma's hijacked Epping Road.

That might seem funny, but it is true. Every word of that song is true. Never before in this democracy have I heard of a government forcing people to deliberately expose themselves to dangerous fumes. We have had the James Hardie scandal, the Maralinga nuclear energy trials and royal commissions into Agent Orange. People have been paid massive amounts of compensation for things that did not happen deliberately. This Government chooses to ignore the well-researched and express dangers of these tunnels. It has done nothing to protect the residents and people who use the Lane Cove tunnel and Epping Road from health risks. The member for Lane Cove eloquently articulated the dangers posed also to local schools. The Government has destroyed Epping Road for the people of the north-west, where it has decided to build a train under water.

Mr MICHAEL RICHARDSON (Castle Hill) [11.19 a.m.]: I am pleased to support the Roads Amendment (Lane Cove Tunnel Filtration) Bill 2007, which was introduced by the hardworking member for Lane Cove. My constituents, like the constituents of the member for Epping, are heavy users of the Lane Cove tunnel. They are amongst the people who are being forced underground, off Epping Road—the underground movement, one might call it—by the Government narrowing Epping Road and creating a situation which is not only expensive but also dangerous for many people. For many years it has been Coalition policy to filter Sydney's tunnels. Indeed, that is the policy that the Coalition took to the last election. Unfortunately, it did not win that election and, as a consequence, every day tens of thousands of people across Sydney are being unnecessarily exposed to high levels of air pollution.

We have only to look at the M5 East tunnels to understand just how bad the problem is. I am sure that virtually every member in this place has driven through the M5 East tunnels at one time or another. It could be said that one could virtually cut the air in those tunnels with a knife. After driving through the tunnel in peak hours I had to wipe the grease off my windscreen, which is shameful. The Government's track record on the M5 East tunnels is woeful. It should have installed two stacks, both filtered, but instead it put in a single stack, unfiltered, at Turrella because it did want to anger more people than it had to. The Government was prepared to concentrate pollution in one area so that another group of people would not be up in arms about what it was doing.

The single stack simply cannot draw all the smoke out of two four-kilometre tunnels carrying 100,000 vehicles a day. The original prediction was that the M5 East would not be carrying that number of vehicles until 2020. In 2008, 100,000 vehicles a day are using those tunnels and, as a result, the stack is operating close to capacity for most of the day. What was the Government's solution to alleviate the problem of all these cars going through the M5 East tunnel? The Government understands that it has a problem. However, it probably does not understand it sufficiently well to realise the extent of the problem. In June 2006 it came up with the idea of installing extra fans to blow unfiltered smog out of the portals. That was completely contrary to the conditions of consent for the tunnels, but we know that this Government rides roughshod over all sorts of development conditions of consent throughout this city and this State.

A limited trial of filtration—which is still not up and running almost two years later—was pretty much a sham and a joke. It certainly was not designed to filter all the air in the tunnels. It was a Clayton's trial—the trial that you have when you are not having a trial. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation [CSIRO] had something interesting to say about the Government's proposal to blow the smog out the ends of the tunnels. Doctor Peter Manins from the CSIRO was quoted in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald dated 6 December 2006 as describing what the Government wanted to do as "world's worst practice". Dr Manins, a man who has given evidence on air quality to a series of parliamentary inquiries, said:

Under the proposal diesel smoke—which carries a high health risk—would be pumped into surrounding suburbs.

This is something that is just in principle not right and should not be happening. I could be quite brutal and say this is another example of the M5 East being world's worst practice.

I would be very concerned. I would be up in arms if I was a resident.

Mr Michael Daley: Point of order: I realise that the member for Castle Hill has little if anything of substance to say about the Lane Cove tunnel; nevertheless, this bill is about the Lane Cove tunnel and nothing other than the Lane Cove tunnel. This bill, which is very simple, has only one provision. So far the member for Castle Hill has spent five minutes talking about the M5 East. The least he could do is talk about the correct tunnel. It is not that hard.

Mr MICHAEL RICHARDSON: To the point of order: The Parliamentary Secretary does not seem to realise that we cannot talk about the Lane Cove tunnel in isolation. It is a road tunnel and there are other road tunnels in Sydney. I intend to talk about road tunnels in other parts of the world, for example, in Norway, Japan, South Korea, Austria, Vietnam and France. We cannot talk about this issue in isolation from practice elsewhere in Sydney and the rest of the world.

ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Thomas George): Order! Is the member referring to filtration?

Mr MICHAEL RICHARDSON: That is right.

ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Thomas George): I will allow the member to continue on that path.

Mr MICHAEL RICHARDSON: The Government has never believed in filtering tunnel air, despite all the evidence in favour of it. When the Government allowed the Lane Cove tunnel to be built it did not require the consortium to install tunnel filtration. I ask members to think back to 2003 and to a damning NSW Health report relating to the M5 East tunnel. I make no excuse whatsoever for talking about the M5 East tunnel, because it is an example of world's worst practice and that is exactly what we do not want to happen in Lane Cove. I do not want my constituents, the residents of Lane Cove and the schoolchildren who live around the portals of the Lane Cove tunnel and so on, to be affected as the people living near and driving through the M5 East tunnel are affected. NSW Health advised motorists in open vehicles and motorcyclists to avoid using the tunnel when transits were likely to be prolonged, particularly if they suffered from asthma. The report stated:

Closing the cabin windows is an effective precautionary measure.

However, that is not much use for anyone travelling in an open sports car or on a motorcycle, and it is not much use if one's car tends to suck in pollutants from outside and does not have a recirculating air-conditioning system. Not getting rid of pollutants at source allows them to collect in the tunnel, exposing many people to dangerous levels of toxins, with dangerous health implications. The Department of Health wanted the Roads and Traffic Authority [RTA] to put up signs outside the M5 East tunnel warning motorists about the problems that could exist, in particular if they took a long time to travel through the tunnel.

Of course, that never happened because this Government has never understood its obligations to the people of New South Wales. Two years later we discovered that the Government was not properly supervising environmental controls in the tunnels. We have to ask whether that is happening with the Lane Cove tunnel right now. In 2005 we learned that air quality standards were not being monitored, fans in fire refuges did not work, and routine maintenance was being scheduled—wait for this—for non-parliamentary sitting days to avoid embarrassing the Government! Buck-passing between the road's operator BHEgis and transport safety contractor Alston also did not help. According to Russ Erwin, General Manager of BHEgis, several of the air quality monitors in the tunnel were wildly inaccurate.

This Government is saying that the air in the tunnel is safe to breathe, that there is no problem and that it does not need to put up warning signs outside the tunnel alerting motorists to the problems that they might experience when driving through the tunnel, yet at the same time we do not know what is the quality of air inside the tunnel. Members might wonder how dangerous air pollution is. According to evidence given to the 2006 Legislative Council inquiry into health impacts of air pollution by Dr Denise Robinson, Chief Health Officer of NSW Health—I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary would doubt her word—air pollution is dangerous enough to kill up to 1,400 people a year.

That is because an enormous number of general health impacts, including respiratory disease, asthma and heart disease, flow from exposure to air pollution. That report summarised the health impacts that are caused by air pollution and particulate matter, for example, increased cardiac and respiratory mortality, increased instances of acute bronchitis in adults and children, increased prevalence and exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults and children, and asthma attacks in adults and children. Nitrogen dioxide results in increased mortality, impaired lung function, impaired respiratory defence mechanisms leading to increase susceptibility to infections and increased respiratory disease in children. Carbon monoxide increases mortality, especially for those with cardiovascular disease—that is, aggravating problems for those with a weak heart, aggravation of cardiovascular disease and chest pain, nausea, headache and fatigue. The ozone affects mortality, acute respiratory problems, chest constriction and pain, and increases the incidence and severity of asthma attacks—

Pursuant to sessional orders business interrupted and set down as an order of the day for a future day.