Earlier
this month the state's third largest oil spill disaster unfolded in outback
Queensland. Tina Hunter dishes the dirt on the Santos spill where
somewhere around 250,000 litres flowed into the Channel Country, upstream
from Lake Eyre. Yes, Lake Eyre, where all our pelicans have been hiding out. As
promised, here is a follow up to my earlier blog “There’s Oil Dripping Through The
Cracks” where I raised my concerns over our (lack of) preparedness
to respond to marine chemical and oil spills on the coastline of NSW.
I began dig, dig, digging deeper into the NSW Government policies and procedures to learn where and how the wildlife response component fits in. Phone calls and emails ensued and you’ve never seen two departments play hot potato more enthusiastically, but the music was about to stop. Along comes a ship called the Magdalene, who, in the process of pumping out bilge water overnight, woke to find they had a fuel leak into the holding tanks and had inadvertently pumped it straight into the harbour. There's not too may oyster farmers operating in there anymore. The State Disaster Plan swung into action and my phone rang to see how many skilled bird catchers and handlers we could supply overnight. Ultimately we sent in about a dozen personnel and the debriefing some months later led to some massive changes in our policies on training and bird-care infrastructure and sparked a six-month-long workshop program along the NSW coastline talking to all kinds of people about it.
Inside the custom-built oiled-bird-cleaning shipping
container.
During my
investigations into our position as a supporting agency to the State Disaster
Plan (and the possibility of funding to support training and infrastructure
development) I discovered we held a seat on an agriculture and animal services
committee that dealt with exactly this issue. Funny, I’d never heard of this
committee before and once we started squealing in the media about our lack of
preparedness a meeting was called out of the blue. How about that! On the
agenda, curiously, oil spills. Before I knew it I was off to Sydney to sit
around a table of suits and discuss our position.
I sat and I listened to a whole lot of blah-blahs as I doodled seethingly on my notepad. When they were done championing their efforts I pitched them a scenario to make my point and my motives clear, “Please, tell me, if there is a shipping accident resulting in an oil spill affecting Montague Island, what is the plan to deal with the 16,000 penguins there?”.
There were one or two gasps at the scale of the problem my scenario suggested, but the overwhelming experience in the room was the silence.
It seemed that the opportunity to make sure we were prepared was open for the taking. As luck would have it, the NSW Government began debating a review of the Marine Pollution Act and somewhere along the way I got wind that the intention of the review to implement a fine applying to marine polluters, like those pesky oil spillers. I heard funding, didn’t you? Having already knocked on a few doors in Macquarie Street about the oil spill issue, one knight in shining armor stood up and seized the opportunity for an amendment ensuring the establishment of an Oiled Wildlife Care Network. And so it will be. To end I bring you some of my most memorable quotes from that NSW Parliamentary debate.
MARINE POLLUTION BILL 2011 Second Reading. Debate resumed from 14 February 2012.
The Hon. LUKE FOLEY (Leader of the Opposition) [3.28 p.m.]: In my role as the shadow Minister for the Environment I have a particular interest in the legislation and I foreshadow that, on behalf of the Labor Opposition, I will move one amendment in the Committee stage that will seek to improve the State's readiness and preparedness for a major oil spill in New South Wales waters.
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Yesterday I
referred to Australian Seabird Rescue which is a non-government organisation.
At a recent meeting of the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries
agriculture and animal services functional area subcommittee, which is a
mouthful, the organisation highlighted some disparate and uncoordinated efforts
in which multiple government agencies engaged to prepare for a spill.
Australian Seaboard Rescue made the case to politicians across the board and
not simply to Opposition members that we have a fair bit of work to do to put
those disparate and uncoordinated efforts together in preparation for an oil
spill.
The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: When I saw the Opposition's amendment I thought it was an April Fool's joke. This horrendous amendment will take us way out of sync with other legislation and will not enable us to deal professionally with oil spills and major shipping into and out of our country.
The
amendment, which has not been properly investigated, proposes to place control
in the hands of a group of well-meaning amateurs and to remove it from the
hands of the State's professionals. That is probably the nicest thing I can say
about the Opposition's foreshadowed amendment which I will address in greater
detail in Committee.---The amendment continues:(b) to test the major spill
contingency plan at least once a year by the conduct of a drill, That is fine; it is already happening. (NOT TRUE MR GAY!!)
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Once again
I emphasise that the Government amendment was to pick up the good part—to allow
people such as the Byron group, who do terrific work, to come in and advise.
The Hon. ROBERT BROWN: The Shooters and Fishers Party supports the amendment moved by the Labor Party and the amendment to the amendment moved by the Minister for Roads and Ports appears to provide a reasonable outcome. We applaud the Government and the Opposition for getting their heads together to arrive at a good outcome.
The Hon. CATE FAEHRMANN: The Greens look forward to the establishment of the network and we urge the Government to ensure that it has influence.
The Hon. JAN BARHAM: we need to do more to support volunteer organisations… This is what we need to clarify: that that training is going to continue and that we have got the right people, because we cannot just pluck them out of nowhere. Training needs to be coordinated a long time in advance and the personnel—both volunteer and professional—need to be properly trained in the event of oil spills.
