This week an accident at a chemical plant resulted in seventy homes and a child care centre becoming contaminated with a deadly poison - and there was a three day delay before the public was notified.
The Orica plant on Kooragang Island in Newcastle makes ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser that is also the base for many types of explosives. Something went wrong and the gas hexavalent chromium was released and drifted over the nearby suburb of Stockton, contaminating about seventy homes - and a child care centre.
Almost unbelievably, the plant kept silent - and when it finally told the state government - no advice was forthcoming for a full three days, and during that time the child care centre stayed open and it's children were exposed to the danger.
Hexavalent chromium has an unsavoury history in the United States. Crusader Erin Brockovich brought the poisoning of a wide area to public notice, resulting in reform - and this was later made into a big ticket feature film. The public world wide is sensitive to gas leaks from chemical plants after the mass carnage in India when a Union Carbide plant accident released a gas in Bhopal, India which killed thousands of sleeping residents in an adjoining suburb.
That three day delay is simply not good enough !
We need a law change - if that is what it takes - to automatically impose such a draconian penalty on any plant that tries to coverup a potentially life threatening industrial accident that even thinking of such a course of action is impossible.
Barry O'Farrell needs to put the cleaners through his own new government and make it clear that any attempt to avoid political damage by not immediately taking action on industrial accidents that may harm the public will result in the relevant minister losing his or her portfolio - and being consigned to the back bench.
It is still not clear exactly what damage has been done in this Newcastle incident, but residents of Stockton have a legitimate reason to worry - and the parents of those children affected have every reason to expect a higher level of integrity from the plant management - and from the responsible minister.
A disaster like Bhopal must never happen in Australia - ever !
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