Last week, I travelled to Morwell to speak with locals about their concerns. With clouds of ash and smoke drifting over the town, people were worried about their health and that of their children.

Last week, I travelled to Morwell to speak with locals about their concerns. With clouds of ash and smoke drifting over the town, people were worried about their health and that of their children. Vulnerable residents, like children and the elderly, have been advised to relocate .

Above is a picture I took of the sky over Morwell. This was taken from the centre of town – you can see the dense clouds of smoke obscuring the view of the Hazelwood power station.

The EPA started keeping hour-by-hour measurements of various particulate pollutants on their website, but there is limited information and interpretation to help residents understand what this actually means.

We are looking into potential issues around whether the owner of the mine, GDF Suez, breached the conditions of their licence . We’ve also been calling for an independent inquiry into the causes of the fire. The government has announced an inquiry, which is a positive step, but we believe that it needs to be a genuinely independent judicial inquiry.

We’ll keep you updated as things progress, so stay tuned. With the fire still burning, and likely to take several weeks at least to extinguish, this issue has a long way to go before it is resolved.