The ACT Government has convened a multi-agency taskforce to investigate the alleged mishandling of asbestos at a Fyshwick auction house earlier this month, following advice that more than 150 Canberrans were exposed to low levels of the potentially deadly fibres.
Attorney-General Simon Corbell said yesterday the Government had written to more than 156 people who had registered for the car auctions at Pickles Auction House on Friday, October 9, urging them to seek medical advice, but there could be others who attended that had not registered.
ACT WorkCover officers immediately shut down the Gladstone Street site that day following reports from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.
Union representatives had earlier arrived at the site after reports from the public that workers on the warehouse's roof appeared to be removing asbestos without full protective gear and releasing visible asbestos fibres into the air.
ACT Chief Health Officer Charles Guest said yesterday preliminary tests on the work site suggested the level of exposure sustained by the workers and the members of the public was low, but as a precaution they should seek medical advice.
''The best we can say about exposure that's occurred in this workplace is that it was brief and that there were not high levels of fibres in the air,'' Dr Guest said.
''Now low is better than high, but it's not zero so we're taking these precautionary measures to provide info and support to anyone who may have concerns about their exposure, even though we think that their risk of developing respiratory disease is very low.''
Although the union asserts that any level of exposure is potentially harmful, Dr Guest said there was no medical evidence to support this.
''This is not an exact science. We do not have a relationship between the number of fibres inhaled and the development of disease.''
The company contracted to remove the asbestos, Australasian Technical Services, strongly denied yesterday all of the allegations the union had made.
The company's Sydney manager, Tom Mahon, said the workers had been wearing the necessary protective clothing, and photos the union had produced allegedly showing unprotected workers and asbestos being dumped down a drain were misleading and false.
A project manager for the company, Ken Smith, also denied the allegations. He said strong winds were to blame for asbestos fibres being blown around that day, but that the concentration of fibres in the air had, according to air quality tests done at the time, been extremely low and within safe levels.
The Government's taskforce consists of officials from ACT Health, the Department of Territory and Municipal Services, the Office of Regulatory Services, the ACT Planning and Land Authority, and WorkCover.
ACTPLA has temporarily suspended the company's asbestos removal licence and confirmed that it had not been authorised to remove the asbestos. However, it was up to the lessee, in this case Pickles, to obtain a building application to authorise the removal.
Mr Corbell said he was pleased with how WorkCover had handled the incident and did not accept there had been any failure on its part. ''I'm pleased with the response from WorkCover. On receipt of the information that there was potentially unauthorised activity they were on site within half an hour and the site was immediately shut down following their inspection of it.''
He said the site had been immediately sealed and no longer posed a health threat. Also, there had been no visible signs to support union allegations that asbestos had been dumped down a drain, but more conclusive tests would be done.