Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I begin by thanking the member for Monash, not only for the speech that he gave to the House just now but equally for his co-chairing of the Parliamentary Group on Asbestos Related Disease and for his many years of commitment to doing something about this product. Asbestos, as all speakers have made clear, kills people by the thousands every year, not only here in Australia but across the world.

On Friday morning, I attended the Asbestos Victims Association's annual memorial service at Pitman Park in Salisbury. The service has been going since 2005. Indeed, it was going before there was a memorial established at Pitman Park, dating back to about 2002. In those early days, there would be a handful of little white crosses that were placed in Pitman Park to identify people who had died from asbestos in that local area. At the service on Friday, there were several hundred crosses. That just highlights the magnitude of the destruction and deaths caused by asbestos just in my area in the northern part of Adelaide.

In the last year for which figures are available, 4,235 lives were lost here in Australia. That was in the year 2017. Those figures are projected to continue at about that rate for probably the next 20 years or so. Of those, 700 or thereabouts, each year for the last few years, have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, and the other 3,500 or thereabouts have been diagnosed with other asbestos related diseases that will ultimately take their lives. As others have quite rightly said, Australia has, per capita, one of the highest incidences of asbestos related diseases in the world. Even though we banned asbestos in this country in 2003, there are still inherent risks associated with it.

I put a question on notice to the Minister for Home Affairs asking him whether there have been, in the last five years, asbestos products detected at the border when they come into Australia, and his answer was:

Yes. Products detected at the border containing asbestos have included:

Children's crayons

Automotive parts within used vehicles: clutches, brake pads, gaskets, door sealants and insulation

Automotive spare parts

Cement fibre boards/panelling

Electric bicycles and scooters

Quad bikes

Industrial gaskets

Gas mask filters

Aircraft parts/insulation

Nut plug material (for mining)

That just highlights the extent to which asbestos is still being used within our community here in Australia, and it highlights the risks for those people who use those products. Sadly, those are the products that have been detected. There are probably many more that have never been detected and are not being detected that are also being used. So it's obviously important that we continue with the campaign of education, awareness and vigilance with respect to how and where asbestos ought to be used.

The other concern I have—and this concern was raised at the PGARD meeting that the member for Monash chaired in this place only last Wednesday—is that, whilst Australia is now slowly getting on top of the issue, that's not the case in Asia and in many developing countries, where they are still using asbestos products, mainly in the form of chrysotile. The suppliers of those products have launched an international campaign claiming that they are relatively safe, contrary to what all the medical opinion would say. It's a dishonest campaign being run in order that they can sell those products to developing countries. My concern is that those developing countries, which today don't have a high rate of asbestos related disease within their countries, will have in the years to come.

There are things we can do. Apart from the education and awareness campaign, we can ensure that there is some consistency in the way we monitor and police the use of asbestos, including the removal of asbestos from homes right around Australia that we know have it within them. But we can also put more money into research because, quite frankly, for all of those people who have been diagnosed with asbestosis, and for those who will be diagnosed—because, more often than not, it takes many years before people are actually diagnosed with the illness—their only hope is medical research, which might ultimately be able to find a cure or at least something that will help them live a much longer and better life.

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