Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the response by the Department of Health and Ageing to the Senate resolution concerning Bisphenol A that was tabled earlier.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I will make my comments short because I know this has been a long day. I note the response from Ms Mary McDonald, First Assistant Secretary, from the Department of Health and Ageing to the motion passed by the Senate on 12 May on Bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA. As I have highlighted in this place before, tests are showing, and there is a great deal of concern about, the impact that this particular contaminant has on babies. It is found in plastics that make things like babies bottles and teething rings. I note that the motion on 12 May asked the government to reassess the potential impacts of BPA, particularly following reports from the Australian institute that highlighted the potential health impacts of BPA in products and the concerns raised about inadequate testing for BPA in products used for babies and how that contaminant can then go into the milk in babies bottles.

I note that the government seems to rely on the fact that major retailers such as Coles, Kmart, Target, Woolworth, Big W and Aldi said that they are voluntarily phasing out products containing BPA. While this is good, the fact is that these bottles can still be bought in other stores. I myself, to find out whether these products were still available, went into a number of chemists and was able to purchase babies bottles that contain BPA. So while we congratulate the major retailers for taking some action on this, the fact is that, sorry, government is not off the hook because these products are still available. Until a more widespread effort is made to ensure that these products are totally phased out from all chemists and all retailers, our babies will still be exposed to potential contamination with BPA.

This is advance notice that I will be bringing another motion back to this place about dealing with those retailers that have not phased out BPA. We cannot rely on voluntary action because obviously some retailers are not carrying out what I think is their responsibility to Australian families, and that is phasing out these products. So we will be bringing something back to this place to ask the government to take further action to require these products to be withdrawn.

Question agreed to.