Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—In respect of the final report of the PFAS select committee, which was tabled out of session last week, I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

PFAS affects every single one of us. Around 98 per cent of the population have PFAS in their blood, yet many people know very little about these chemicals and how pervasive they are. PFAS affects us in our everyday lives, from consumer goods like cosmetics, food packaging, pharmaceuticals, cookware, furniture, tampons and even our drinking water. They are called forever chemicals because they don't break down in our bodies or the environment, and they bioaccumulate.

Just a few companies—3M and DuPont, first and foremost—are responsible for literally poisoning the whole planet and almost the entire population with these chemicals. They have known about these impacts for decades, yet they've been able to get away with this almost unblemished. In the meantime, governments in this country have paid little attention to the ever-increasing impacts of these chemicals. It seems it was easier to ignore this asbestos of the 21st century than to address something this widespread and costly.

Yet we could not ignore this ever-increasing problem any longer. This is why I initiated this inquiry on PFAS, and it's been an honour to chair it over the last year. I am pleased that the committee have been able to agree on 47 recommendations resulting from the vast evidence provided by affected communities and workers, experts, industry, government and government agencies. In particular, I'd like to thank those who have been directly affected by PFAS, most notably firefighters and communities whose land and water have been contaminated.

The committee's visit to Wreck Bay at the start of this year was an incredible privilege, and I wish to thank the Wreck Bay Aboriginal community for inviting us onto their land and sharing their stories. To see a small community so deeply affected by the contamination from a nearby defence base has been absolutely heartbreaking. Country, water and totems have been poisoned, affecting the community's ability to fish, hunt, swim and birth on country. It's affecting their ability to engage in ceremony and pass on cultural knowledge to younger generations. Their cultural loss has been acknowledged in a class action settlement. However, the small settlement amount is just a drop in the ocean of what the community has lost.

It also does not take into account the significant health impacts on the community, which has tragically lost many members over the last years, with many others having cancer or suffering from kidney disease or high cholesterol, all of which are associated with PFAS. Wreck Bay has been described by doctors as an obvious cancer cluster, yet governments have denied this. There are no additional health supports available to the community, and even accessing primary health care is challenging.

This is not a coincidence. Australian-government issued health advice on PFAS is inconsistent and lagging behind international evidence. It states that PFAS exposures have generally been small and are unlikely to be important to health outcomes. This is at odds with the World Health Organization classifying PFOA as a carcinogenic to humans and PFOS as possibly carcinogenic. These are the two most prolific PFAS, with others still under investigation. We also know that PFAS acts as an immunosuppressant. This means they make it more likely for people to get sick and make it harder to successfully fight diseases. This is why the committee recommended for the government health advice to be reviewed. It also recommended providing subsidised PFAS blood testing, enhanced health screening and mental health support for highly exposed groups, such as firefighters and affected communities.

The main source of PFAS contamination and PFAS related health issues was in firefighting foams containing PFAS. Our firefighters have been exposed to these toxic foams for decades. While 3M knew they were harmful, the committee also agreed that the government should legally pursue 3M for producing firefighting foams containing PFAS, which were widely used in this country. Any legal settlement amount should go towards the remediation of contaminated sites.

Firefighters have put their lives on the line for us in so many ways yet have been fighting for years to get acknowledgement of the harm these foams have caused and to try and get these foams banned. Their research and advocacy around this is internationally leading. Yet successive governments have ignored their pleas. The committee recommends a ban of all firefighting foams containing PFAS, replacing all legacy PFAS contaminated firefighting equipment, and remediation of contaminated fire stations and training facilities. The committee also recommends that the government ensure a consistent approach on occupational PFAS exposure across the country to protect workers.

Chemical regulation is another major concern. Most people would not be aware of how much this country relies on chemical companies self-reporting how toxic they believe their chemicals are instead of independent testing before chemicals enter the market. Even though three of the around 14,000 PFAS chemicals have now been banned in this country, there is no mechanism in place to actually give effect to this in practice. We have a long way to go to ensure the public is being kept safe from toxic chemicals. Meanwhile, there is little chance for people to know what is in their products due to the lack of labelling requirements, which is why the committee recommended the establishment of a mandatory product labelling regime for PFAS chemicals.

On a higher level, the committee recommended improving chemical assessment, classification and regulation but fell short of proposing a general ban on all PFAS chemicals, which was widely supported by participants in the inquiry and which is already being progressed in the EU. I believe that the current regime of banning a few of these toxic chemicals at a time won't get us there. New PFAS chemicals are being released onto the market all the time, continuing to pose risks to our health and the environment. Given the knowledge we have, this is completely unacceptable, and we need to take a precautionary approach and ban PFAS as a class.

PFAS is in our drinking water, and it has been increasingly making headlines over the last year, as it was discovered that the Blue Mountains residents had been exposed to elevated PFAS levels in their drinking water likely for the last three decades. This has resulted in some residents having higher PFAS levels in their blood than even communities near defence bases, and yet widespread testing has not been offered to community members. The Blue Mountains example illustrates the shortfalls of monitoring PFAS in drinking water, to which there is no coordinated national approach. Many drinking water sources don't get tested at all, which means that high levels, like those in the Blue Mountains, would only be detected randomly or if there is a specific suspicion of contamination. Hundreds of thousands of people right across this country could be drinking contaminated water right now.

There is so much I could talk about, and there are so many more important recommendations, but I don't have the time. It is disappointing that Labor are the only ones who disagreed with the committee recommendations. It is time that we take PFAS seriously and time for the government to stop passing the buck and take responsibility. I urge everyone to contact Labor ministers to let them know that you care and you want these recommendations implemented.

I want to thank the secretariat and fellow committee members, who saw with their own eyes a snake dying on the beach because it was contaminated with PFAS. There was a lot of time, energy and work put into this. We need action. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.