Home owners caught up in the Mr Fluffy asbestos crisis will receive information from the ACT government through registered post next week, as Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said federal government co-operation would bring increased action.
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Speaking a day after she met with federal Employment Minister Eric Abetz and government advisers, Ms Gallagher said information about the safety of remediation efforts and demolition should be received by the government next month.
Ms Gallagher said the meeting with Senator Abetz, who is co-ordinating the federal response to the loose-fill asbestos crisis, had established the federal government's willingness to help resolve the issue.
No financial commitments were made during the talks but Ms Gallagher said the ACT considered a 1991 memorandum of understanding signed with the Commonwealth to still be in force in relation to the cleaning up of more than 1000 houses.
Mr Fluffy asbestos is present in ceilings and wall spaces in homes across the ACT and parts of New South Wales.
That 1991 deal acknowledged it could become necessary to remove asbestos from properties missed in the original effort or to remove additional asbestos from properties already checked.
Under the arrangement, all costs would be borne according to a formula whereby the ACT government pays the first $10 million, the second $10 million is evenly shared and after that the Commonwealth pays two-thirds, $2 for every $1 spent by the territory.
Ms Gallagher said the agreement did not contain an end date, and the federal government was assessing its liabilities and exposure.
She flagged the likely need for federal funding for residents and families caught up in the crisis and said she hoped the two governments would agree on expert safety advice.
"I certainly said to Senator Abetz that we have some goodwill within the residents, that they are giving governments time to work through all the evidence and the issues, but at some point they are going to want an answer from the governments,'' Ms Gallagher said.
"We're going to have to be ready to give them one and I think August is a reasonable time frame," she said.
Ms Gallagher last week announced an ACT assistance package for families caught up in the crisis, including emergency payments of up to $10,000.
As many as 10 families have been forced out of their homes and hundreds of houses will undergo inspections to establish risk.
"We left the meeting with a commitment to continue to talk,'' Ms Gallagher said. ''It's very clear that they [the Commonwealth] are interested and that they understand the complexity of the issue and how challenging it is for the residents who are living in those homes."
A spokesman for Senator Abetz said the meeting had been productive.
"[Senator Abetz] understands the distress that this issue is causing local residents. The federal government is assisting the ACT government to carefully work through this issue,'' the spokesman said.
"It is important that all involved work co-operatively to properly determine the extent of the problem so that we can ensure the best response possible."
Ms Gallagher said members of the ACT government asbestos taskforce would contact home owners who did not receive information through registered post.