Legislative Council, Tuesday 12 December 2023

Ms FORREST (Murchison) - Mr President, I rise on adjournment because this opportunity presents itself, unusually perhaps, to raise a matter that has been a significant impact on a constituent.

On 17 November 2023, I wrote to the Deputy Premier, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, about a small business in my electorate, Alchemia Distillery , on Table Cape. I did this after having a number of discussions with the minister and his advisers in relation to roadworks occurring right behind their property. They live on the property, the distillery, and they have spent a lot of money on that distillery, which backs onto the highway where there is significant construction work going on. I received a response on 7 December to that correspondence.

The reason I am speaking on this is this response has a number of what I would determine to be quite serious inaccuracies in it, such that the constituents feel deeply aggrieved and would seek the minister to get some more accurate advice from his department.

In terms of the loss they have suffered - financial loss - this does not talk about the emotional toll on this couple who invested heavily in their business. The main matter relates to dust from the roadworks. It is a pretty windy spot. You are basically on the top of the ridge leading up to Table Cape. The dust meant they have not been able to distil. One would imagine that having dust in the still is not an ideal situation. A few of the costs that have been incurred so far are: $808 to pay a cleaner two hours a day before they were able to open; they were also having to pay an additional $1650 to date on additional cleaning for private experiences. They do book private experiences in. They are not open every day of the week. There was a loss in September of $4000 in relation to that. The loss in October in relation to the use of their tasting room was $7290 alone. We all know that whisky is not made one day and sold the next. It has a cumulative effect, not something that is not done today. The market value of a loss is $110.50 per litre, so missing four production runs, an average of 120 litres per run, that is $53 040 loss in today's value. At the recommended retail price of $325 for a 500 ml bottle in 2026, and 768 bottles, that equates to a $249 600 gap in future market sales so far.

The roadworks are not complete as yet. They have had to cancel two private cask owner experiences where people create their own cask, and the loss so far on that is $6680. They have also planted a number of botanical plants in their garden around their home and business and the loss of the botanical plants so far is $2299. The cost of having to buy in additional water to try to wash their plants to maintain the botanical wellness of those plants has been $350.

If you add all that up in the short space of time and the roadworks are not finished, it is significant damage.

I will go to some of the inaccuracies in this letter:

The department informed the minister that the owners of the distillery notified the department's contractor in December 2022 that they were having issues with dust being generated from the construction site.

They have been in constant contact. It is not like they have just suddenly raised this.

The contractor used a water cart to dampen the gravel construction areas to reduce dust.

Further complaints from the distillery in September 2023 -

This is December 2022 through to September 2023.

The minister was informed were addressed by ensuring the water cart was used in all areas of gravel and not only in the construction area. Additionally, the cart was used seven days per week with the contractor responding to text messages from the property owner that an extra water cart passes as required.

In response to that inaccuracy, I will note that on 14 September 2023, the owners notified Thomas Campbell, the project manager for the contractor, that they had made 200 litres of whisky and 100 litres of gin and the dust control was not stopping clouds of dust on the junction coming straight into the distillery and tasting room. This was the start of an ever-worsening dust issue for both the property owners and the elderly neighbours.

With regard to seven days a week for the water cart:

Please note that we had no water cart or dust control on site at weekends.

That was not seven days, they open on weekends. They do not necessarily open during the week unless the contractors are working on a Saturday.

If the contractors were not working on the weekend, we didn't get any weekend cover for dust control.

On 30 September we had a food truck and music event at the distillery and the dust was really bad. The owner texted Thomas Campbell to see if the water cart could be organised. He texted back advising them it was grand final day, so, unlikely.

They did not get weekend cover with the water cart for dust control until 14 October, despite the minister's assurance in his letter it was in September.

As I have said, they have detailed loss of earnings with regard to this.

The minister said he had been further advised that a complaint was received from the distillery in February 2023 regarding vibrations that was felt in the owners' home from the vibrating roller working at the Tollymore Road intersection.

The contractor responded to this complaint by turning off the vibrator on the roller. However, this practice could not be maintained without impacting the contractor's ability to meet the compaction requirements to construct the road. The contractor then worked with a lower vibration on the roller and maintained this approach until September 2023, when the roadworks at the intersection were finished.

There is a number of inaccuracies in this. What is correct is that on 23 February 2023, the owners of the distillery called the project manager for the contractor and asked him if he could come to the residence as they were extremely concerned about the level of vibration in the house. He sent a video of the pictures bouncing on the walls and the windows rattling. This is an old house on stone foundation, not concrete or with reinforcing fabric.

The project manager was on sight within 10 minutes. He was shocked, saying he had never experienced vibrations in a property like that. He said he would speak to the engineers to see what could be done and try to minimise the vibration. They did turn down the roller, as the minister said in his letter. However, cracks in the ceilings and around the cornices started to appear so the owners supplied photos. On 25 May 2023, the program manager arranged to bring his boss, who was a structural engineer, to experience the level of vibration in the house. He said it was the worst he had ever felt or seen.

In September, with regard to the matter raised in the minister's response, the owners for the business were not sure who from the contracting team had suggested that the road works and vibration at the junction had finished by September, but it was obviously untrue.

We experienced the worst dust and vibration that we had experienced during the whole project throughout September right through to October. The roadworks have not finished. Dust was still a problem right through October and the vibration seal was finally completed at the end of November, so the minister's information is completely inaccurate there.

They also talked about having dust monitoring put in place as well as reducing the vibration. My constituent informs me the contractor did have a meeting on 25 May 2023 and said they were arranging a report and vibration monitoring during the following four months' work at the junction. The extreme vibrations continued without any monitoring, despite being chased up as had been promised on 25 May. Finally, on 19 September at 11 a.m. the vibration monitoring box was put in place. That was from May to September. This device had a five day battery life. The following day on 20 September, all the equipment was moved from the junction to the buttress section of the roadworks, some 600 metres away, so of course there was no vibration to be monitored.

On day five, when the battery of the monitoring box ran out, the machinery moved back to the junction at 7.30 a.m. on 25 September and stayed all day. A new battery was fitted at 2.50 p.m. with five days' life again. On 25 September as the workers finished at 4 p.m. on 26 September all the machinery moved back to buttress again 600 metres away. I note that Pitt & Sherry installed the vibration box on 19 September. The engineer that installed the box, advised if you could feel the vibration under your feet in the house it is enough to do structural damage. They have video evidence of all this.

To say this has been adequately dealt with would be a long way from the stretch. The dates are inaccurate in terms of the completion. The road is still not completed. I drove through there on the weekend and whilst the sealing of the actual intersection has occurred, the road from the actual intersection behind their house remains unsealed and there is ongoing work.

My question with regard to this is: will the minister inform himself much more fully of this matter? The purpose of the letter was not only to raise the issues and to highlight the concerns of my constituents, it was to ask in such circumstances where there has been a direct and significant financial impact to a small business, the significant damage to the house will be covered by the contractor's insurance, but the minister told me when I asked if there was any financial support to support this small business:

Having consulted my department, I am advised there is no ability to pay compensation for claim business impacts due to construction activities on a public road.

We can pay all manner of business financial support in COVID-19, in other circumstances, but when it is because of roadworks and there is a clearly demonstrable claim of loss of income from your business, there is no money. I ask the minister to reconsider that and look at some sort of mechanism to enable some support for this business which has been severely impacted, despite their best efforts. The inaccuracies in this letter show a complete disregard for the legitimate and genuine concerns of the Alchemia distillery.