Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Roberts for his question. Our first priority with managing PFAS contamination has consistently been to ensure the wellbeing of affected communities. The Australian government acknowledges that communities in areas where PFAS contamination has been detected are very concerned about how this may affect them. We have a commitment to break the exposure pathways through treatment of water and soil, ensuring that residents have access to safe drinking water and preventing further contamination. The Defence PFAS program spend to date is approximately $433 million, which includes investigation, remediation and management activities. Defence has also provided $45 million to other agencies in grants and transfers to enable research into health and remediation aspects. We continue to place a strong focus on the issue, with a further $83 million allocated for the financial year 2020-21.

PFAS has been used in hundreds of industrial applications and consumer products, such as carpeting, apparel, upholstery, food paper wrapping, firefighting foams and metal plating. Firefighting foams containing PFAS were a best-in-class product and were used widely by the Department of Defence and other firefighting agencies across the globe. The Department of Defence uses firefighting foam to protect human life and assets from emergency flammable liquid fires. Defence has leaned forward in managing the issue and has commenced detailed environmental investigations at 28 locations, and has finalised 25. Defence is also committed to supporting local communities affected by PFAS contamination and has initiated the following actions: broken PFAS exposure pathways and reduced the migration of PFAS from Defence sites by providing alternative drinking water supplies to 478 properties as well as installing or providing funding for 10 water treatment plants, treating over 5.4 billion litres of water.