WESTPORT TASKFORCE — AUTOMATED OUTER HARBOUR
555. Ms L. METTAM to the Premier:
I have a supplementary question. Can
the Premier outline to the house what other environmental damage, in addition
to the damage to the seagrass meadows and snapper population, will occur as a direct
result of his automated outer harbour?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
As I said, I do not know whether the
member has ever been to the Kwinana industrial strip. I do not know whether the
member has actually been there. I live there. I live right next door to it. I drive
through it every day—every single day, multiple times—so I know
it pretty well. I walk on the beach there all the time. It is very close to my
house. I regularly swim in Cockburn Sound during summer with my children. As I said,
any damage done to Cockburn Sound was largely done in the 1960s and 1970s with
nitrogen inflow, so I do not know whether the member is aware of that. That was
the main problem that had the major impact on seagrass meadows throughout
Cockburn Sound. Since then, there has been an enormous amount of work done on
seagrass rehabilitation and a lot of it has been successful. We currently have,
as I said, around nine ports or berths within Cockburn Sound—a new
port, a new harbour, would be another one, so it would go to 10. Obviously,
anything we do will have full environmental assessment to make sure that we
protect the environment as best we can within that area.
I want to also tell the house about
the area in question. I do not know whether the member has ever been to Alcoa—I
suspect not—but the area in question between Alcoa and the Kwinana bulk
cargo jetty is a very heavily industrialised area. Just to the south of that is
the BP refinery, CBH Group, Kwinana nickel refinery, Alcoa, Henderson and the
Australian Marine Complex. Just across the way is Australia's biggest
naval base. Those are currently on Cockburn Sound. That is just a snapshot.
There is a lot more than that. There are major fuel installations such as
Cockburn Cement and other major industrial activity. Obviously, we manage that
on a daily basis. State governments always have managed it, going back to 1952
or even beyond. If we go back even further, we can go back to 1916 or so when
the initial plans were released for a naval base and that is why there is a suburb
there called Naval Base. But in any event, we manage all of those things on a daily
basis, and I think, by world standards, we manage it well. It is a good-quality
standard of management of Cockburn Sound.
I was at Woodman Point the other day
with my daughter, climbing around the rocks. People were fishing there. People
were swimming—in the middle of this weather! It is right next to major
industrial installations. Therefore, all I can say is that we will continue to
manage it well. We will ensure that Western Australia has a strong future in freight and trade and we will ensure that the
highest of environmental standards are in place, as they currently are.
The SPEAKER: That is the end
of question time.