Total Environment Centre's View of NSW Parliamentary Select Committee

by Jeff Angel, Director – TEC

Some examples:

Health goals

Our position is that the "health goal" for lead in air has to be made into a standard, and a step-wise reduction of ambient levels incorporated in the NSW Clean Air Act for the following levels:

• 1.0 µg/M³ by 1996

• 0.5 µg/M³ by 1998, and

• 0.15 µg/M³ by 2000.

Lead in petrol

We call for legislation to ensure that petrol sourced (i.e., refined) in NSW meets a maximum level of 0.2 grams of lead per litre of petrol. As things stand at present, it is possible for petrol sold in country areas to contain lead up to 0.84 g/litre. Additionally, we call for legislation to bring down the lead content of petrol to 0.05 g/litre by the beginning of 1996, and to zero added lead by the end of 1996.

Lead shot, lead sinkers

We would like to see these banned. Anti-duck hunters in NSW seem to disagree with us, on the grounds that replacing lead with steel shot for duck shooting might seem as though that is all that needs to be done - which is clearly not the case. However, the anti-duck shoot campaigners in Victoria say that steel shot has the effect of making it too expensive for some shooters, thus cutting the number of ducks that die by shooting as well as the greater number of ducks that die by lead poisoning.

We are concerned that the Lead Reference Centre promised for early 1995 by the former Environment Minister, Chris Hartcher, has been put off until July this year - this makes us uneasy as to whether it will really happen. More importantly, we want such a Lead Reference Centre run by a NGO - such as The LEAD Group. NG0s (non-government organisations) are best placed to run community services of this sort we believe the NG0s have more credibility, and are more committed to actually helping people than a bureaucracy can ever be.