Heath: Government need to take responsibility for EAO

THIS morning, the Member for Eastern Victoria Region, Renee Heath met with worried Wonthaggi residents about the contamination fiasco at the North Store Café in Wonthaggi.

Ms Heath has committed to taking the stories of impacted residents to Parliament, in a bid to have the Environmental Audit Overlay removed.

“It’s really an unbelievable situation.”

“I think there’s enough community support and community outrage to overturn this I believe. I’m surprised they haven’t already in fact.”

According to Ms Heath the Minister for Planning signed the EAO on the 18th of January and according to some reports, the current Bass Coast Shire Councillors weren’t informed.

 “It’s a major, major blunder,” said Ms. Heath.

“What I raised in Parliament (last year as well), was, name one subdivision anywhere that wasn’t used for farming or grazing. So why is this area being targeted and singled out? And we haven’t had an answer at this point.”

“I’m hoping that the overlay is removed. I think that it needs to be removed because the way it’s been handled from the start is so inappropriate, and a lot of the soil testing has come back clear, so the fact that people are under this amount of stress because of a contaminant that’s probably not there, is completely unacceptable and I think the government needs to take responsibility for it.”

Ms Heath is also supporting a petition that is available online and in paper form at some stores in the Wonthaggi Plaza.

The MP is encouraging everyone to sign the petition and to share it widely on social media and is also planning a door knock to gather more signatures.

If the paper petition receives over 2000 signatures or if there are 10000 signatures altogether, it can trigger a debate in parliament, which Ms Heath commented would be "very, very embarrassing for the Government to not overturn it or even have this issue highlighted, which I think is a good thing to happen."

Pru Scholtes and Helen Povall from the Save our Wonthaggi North East Residents action group were in attendance and have vowed to get the EAO removed.

“People are scared and they’re frightened,” said Pru.

“Businesses may struggle as people are really worried about spending money; it has a flow on effect for the whole community.”

Another attendee said that the retrospective planning amendment has hit people and businesses at a terrible time.

“This is all on the heels of COVID, which absolutely slammed businesses,” he declared.

While impacted resident from Splint Way, Cathy Harrison attended the gathering because she believes it’s important that everyone is made aware of the issue.

“I believe there’s so many people who still don’t know about it,” she said.

To sign the petition and help to get the EAO overturned go to www.bit.ly/wonthaggieao or use the QR code.