By DANIEL TRAN and CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
GREATER Dandenong Council could be saddled with maintaining a local asbestos register for the city.
Under changes recommended by the federal government’s asbestos management review, local councils will be expected to maintain a database on the asbestos found in their municipalities. They will also be responsible for a scheme that will see asbestos content reports be undertaken before homes are sold, leased or renovated.
Municipal Association Victoria president Bill McArthur said the state government, not councils, should be responsible for the register.
“Victorian councils don’t have any interface at point-of-sale, leasing or for many internal building renovations that occur as-of-right. It not only misunderstands the role of councils, but creates onerous new obligations well outside of their current areas of responsibility.”
Cr McArthur said there was no consideration for the costs on councils and how the proposal would be funded.
Greater Dandenong engineering services director Bruce Rendall said the council could not comment on the register until “more details of the strategic plan are released”.
Last month, the Weekly exclusively reported lives were being put in danger because there were currently no mandatory requirements for home owners to conduct an asbestos content review before renovations.
The black hole in the legislation has led to a third wave of asbestos victims being diagnosed with life-threatening diseases, most of whom renovated their homes in the 1980s.
A Safe Work Australia report found that in 2007 there were 660 new cases of mesothelioma in Australia and 551 deaths.
Breathing in asbestos fibres has since been linked to lung cancer and deadly respiratory diseases such as mesothelioma with asbestos-affected individuals going decades without showing symptoms.
Another disaster on the cards?
ASBESTOS removalist Brian Gavranic fears an asbestos register could lead to a ‘Pink Batts’-style debacle.
Mr Gavranic, who runs Dandenong-based Asbestos Safe, said a proposed asbestos content register could be an “invitation for shonks”. “If the government does it like ‘Pink Batts’ . . . you could just get blow-ins and clowns who go around knocking on doors saying ‘your house has got asbestos’.”
Mr Gavranic was alluding to the Rudd government’s free home insulation scheme for households.
The $2.45 billion scheme was cut short after many reports of shoddy installations, leading to house fires and four installers dying on the job.
A review of about 14,000 homes found a third had faulty or dangerous installations. “I’m wary of anything being run by the government,” Mr Gavranic said.
“The government should ensure that the audits are limited to people who are registered and have been doing asbestos removal for a long time. It’s going to cause such a bureaucracy.”
Mr Gavranic questioned whether a “struggling family in Dandenong would cough up $500 for an audit”.
The cost of removing asbestos was a further impediment. A house ridd-led with asbestos could cost up to $10,000 for removal of the deadly fibres. He cautiously supported a council-subsidised asbestos removal scheme “but only if they don’t just collect those fees from somewhere else”.
Greater Dandenong engineering services director Bruce Rendall didn’t comment on such a scheme.
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