NECA has condemned the ACT Government for again refusing to release a list of Canberra homes containing potentially deadly loose fill asbestos, putting the lives of ACT residents and workers at risk.

NECA ACT executive director Oliver Judd says that with the closure this week of Australia’s Royal Commission into the Rudd government’s handling of the Home Insulation Program it was incomprehensible that the ACT government had chosen to suppress the details of the 1,100 houses that had asbestos insulation with the potential for fatal or serious long term health implications.

If not reversed, this decision will see this ACT Government recognised as the one that didn’t care about the residents or workers of the Territory.

Whilst citizens of the ACT have every right to feel that it is a cruel decision to leave them unaware of whether their homes will be the cause of a debilitating illness or fatality, it also has immediate effects on those workers who undertake installation, repairs or maintenance in these houses on a daily basis.

Electrical contractors are regularly called upon to enter ceiling spaces, under floor areas or access cavity walls where this danger exists. For an employer to send their employees into a work situation where safety cannot be guaranteed is an intolerable position.

“The decision of the ACT government flew in the face of common sense, showed lack of respect for residents and workers and ignored the advice of the federal government’s own expert group the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency,” Oliver says.

Oliver adds that as the Royal Commission into the bungled Home Insulation Program finishes hearings it would be a tragedy for a second one affecting the ACT to be lining up in the distance.