Further Conflicts of Interests Revealed in EPA Bungle

Thursday, 16 October 2014

The state government has revealed a further 40 projects, on top of the 25 identified earlier this year, where declarations of a conflict of interest were made by members of the Environmental Protection Authority.

Greens Member for the Mining and Pastoral Region Robin Chapple MLC said this new revelation has totally crippled the legitimacy of the EPA.

“There is absolutely no way the government can continue to brush this issue to one side,” he said.

“Any government with a thread of decency would immediately undertake a review of the projects involved, dismiss the current board members and think very carefully about who they replaced them with.”

Mr Chapple said the government was being deliberately misleading in taking this long to reveal the full extent of conflicts of interest within the EPA.

“How many more corrections will need to be made before the full extent of this issue is revealed?,” he said.

“Not only is this government not taking seriously this issue, which could potentially invalidate the projects involved, but it is trying to change the laws to get around it as if it were no big deal.

“I will be calling on the auditor general to review the declaration process within the EPA over previous projects.

“The current validation bill before the house will summarily validate all previous mistakes; this is not an acceptable way to do business in this day and age.”

For more information please contact Robin Chapple on 0409 379 263 or 9486 8255.

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