Stink over Corio getting up noses

Peter Farago
ARGUMENT about the respective benefits of a proposed waste water treatment plant at Corio has conspired to bite federal Labor candidate for Corio Richard Marles on the behind.
Mr Marles had made a significant political stance in support of the Northern Reclamation Plant, designed to replace Shell refinery’s existing supply of drinking water with recycled product, freeing up five per cent of Geelong’s supply.
At the time Mr Marles called on Federal Government to fund its share of the $64 million project, to which Environment Minister Malcolm agreed in an announcement surprising Spring Street.
But since then the debate has moved out of the sedate, titfortat of two levels of government calling on each other to provide cash for an important project.
Now the argument is far closer to home.
It took Family First candidate for Corio Gordon Alderson, also a member of Geelong Community for Good Life, to point out the central problem with the plant it was going to be within 300 metres of Corio homes.
When Mr Alderson’s party held a public meeting, Mr Marles said Family First’s position against the plant was “disgraceful”.
“The Family First campaign is a smallminded pot shot at a really important campaign,” Mr Marles told the Independent.
He claimed the Family First policy of moving the plant to Avalon would “effectively kill” the project through added cost.
This might be fair enough if his economics stack up but it still doesn’t consider the voices of Geelong’s northern suburbs, which would have to live with the plant.
Geelong’s northern suburbs, including Corio, Norlane and North Shore, are the rock that keeps the ALP in power in the federal seat of Corio.
Although it’s listed as a marginal seat, it would be highly unlikely for Labor to be rolled from office for the first time since 1967.
But misreading voters nationally cost Labor disastrously at the last federal election.
And it would be difficult to present a dry argument about five per cent of water when the cost is a sewage treatment plant on your doorstep.
Readers have put Mr Marles under the microscope since his outburst.
And what they found presents a great point.
One letters to the editor of the Independent pointed out that if this project was proposed for anywhere else in Geelong it wouldn’t get off the ground for fear of alienating residents in, say, Highton or Grovedale.
Geelong’s north might be home to heavy industry but that doesn’t mean residents deserve to smell their own waste being treated, too.
The Avalon proposal deserves fair consideration, not rhetoric and putdowns.