Tuesday, 13 May 2025

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (13:59): This Labor government’s obsession with building more and more costly roads is set to create a new crisis in air quality and subsequent health impacts. Communities across west and north-east Melbourne are protesting that the air stacks from tunnels on the West Gate Tunnel and North East Link will pump fine particulate pollution onto local communities, the kinds of fine particles that can get deep into people’s lungs and cause a range of serious health issues including asthma, heart disease and other lung diseases. The communities are calling for filtration systems to be installed on each air stack as well as air quality monitoring to be done prior to the opening of each megaproject. The West Gate Tunnel is supposed to get trucks off residential streets, but without filtration, communities will still be exposed to pollution from over 16,000 trucks each and every day. Filtration is proven technology, it is readily available and it should be fitted from day one, just as the government’s own inquiry recommended in 2017. The Victorian environment protection agency has stated to local communities that despite the relevant environmental reference standards having legal status and that the air quality limits apply to the North East Link road project, the EPA has no statutory powers to enforce compliance or capacity to intervene, so the government must take responsibility for the pollution that will flow from their enormous road projects and intervene to protect the health of the community.