Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) | Hansard source

I assume everyone here loves to eat berries and loves giving berries to their children and grandchildren, believing they are giving them something not just yummy but also healthy. Did you know that your beloved blueberries are being sprayed not just with pesticides but with forever pesticides? Berries, capsicum and broccoli, among other things, are routinely sprayed with a chemical called isocycloseram, and this pesticide breaks down into compounds that are so-called 'forever chemicals' or PFAS. They are called this because they don't break down in the environment; they actually accumulate in the environment and in our bodies.

There is widespread evidence that PFAS chemicals are linked with a range of negative health outcomes, such as cancers, kidney diseases, fertility issues and harm to unborn children. Last year I chaired a Senate inquiry into PFAS chemicals. Its first recommendation was that Food Standards Australia New Zealand should review the tolerable daily intakes for PFAS against the latest international research and regulatory settings and present a report to this parliament by October this year at the latest. As part of this review, FSANZ should reconsider the need to establish regulatory limits on PFAS in food.

Of course, like so many important recommendations, the government has not acted on this. You're poisoning our people, our babies—even you, new Labor person. Meanwhile, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, APVMA, intends to raise maximum residue levels of Syngenta's isocycloseram pesticide 500-fold. So the chemical company is not reducing the chemicals in our food; they're making it worse.