Bills

Environment Protection (Disposal of PFAS Contaminated Substances) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (10:47): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Environment Protection Act 1993. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (10:48): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

It was very alarming at the beginning of this year when the local people in McLaren Vale found out that our region was set to become the dumping ground for PFAS contaminated substances that would be coming from Victoria, New South Wales and around South Australia and dumped in our pristine food bowl and wine growing region. This is one of the most well-respected, clean, green, wine regions anywhere in the world, and the thought of having this deadly PFAS contamination dumped in our area outraged everyone. We have so far had more than 3,000 people sign our petition.

I have written to the chair of the Environment Protection Authority and said that this is actually a corruption of what the EPA stands for. If it is about environment protection, how can you take these substances from around Australia and dump them in an environment where we do not have PFAS in the sort of concentration that the proponents, ResourceCo, want to dump this PFAS material? The EPA said the proponents have followed all of the rules and they are following legislation and their regulations.

By the looks of it, they stand ready to give this dump the go-ahead to accept PFAS waste from around Australia. That is not good enough. If they say they are going by the rules, we need to change the rules. I am not just going to change them for the people of McLaren Vale. I do not think anyone in this house would want PFAS dumped near the watertables, as they are proposing to do in McLaren Vale. I do not think anyone in this house would want them dumping this near schools or local residences, which is what they are proposing to do in McLaren Vale.

Tatachilla Lutheran College is just up the road and they have 1,100 students. We are building a school for 1,600 students just down the road at Aldinga, and of course we have residents around there as well. The local McLaren Vale Grape, Wine and Tourism Association and many of our great winemakers and wine companies are dead against this. My proposal in this amendment bill is not only to look after the people of McLaren Vale and our local area but to ban the dumping of PFAS material:

(d) in whole or in part in the Greater Adelaide planning region…

(e) within 50 km of land used for the business of primary production; or

(f) within a township [in South Australia] or 5 km from the boundaries of a township.

According to this amendment bill:

PFAS contaminated substance means a substance that contains PFAS in which a concentration that exceeds the concentration prescribed by regulation (which may vary in relation to different substances) for the purposes of this definition…

On our side of the house, the Labor Party is supporting this because none of us think it is right to dump PFAS of this sort of concentration near schools, near residences, in food bowls or near watertables that can be contaminated. PFAS is forever; there is no way to get rid of it. The proponents, ResourceCo, say that their design will last for generations. I am sorry, but is that two generations? Is that three generations? Again, PFAS lasts forever.

This is not the sort of substance we want, in these concentrations, anywhere near our people, our schools, our food, our food manufacturing areas and our food production areas. My son has very elevated levels of PFAS in his system because he ate eggs from chooks that were on the Largs Bay fire station grounds. Firefighters and others who ate vegetables from those grounds also have very highly elevated levels of PFAS. This stuff gets into the system. It gets into the food chain and it is absorbed into our bodies.

I am very worried about the EPA because they did not conduct any real public meetings in McLaren Vale. They said they could not have meetings because of COVID and they could not bring people together. The very week that they should have held a meeting, there was a meeting at the Adelaide Oval for the Liberal Women's Council, which could have had up to 700 people. At the same time, the EPA told our community, 'Come along and we will have a one-on-one session.'

At this session, a representative of the proponent, ResourceCo, was sitting there. Right next to them, in cahoots, was the EPA, and then they had some poor person from SA Health who did not know about the implications of PFAS on the system. It was a bit like parent-teacher night. The individuals in our community who were very concerned went along one at a time and were told by ResourceCo, 'It's all good, it's all good,' and then the EPA would say, 'It's all good, it's all good,' and then the SA Health person would say, 'We don't know what the health implications are.'

I am telling you that is a bit like the doctors in the 1950s saying that smoking was not bad for you. That was a little bit like the asbestos people in the 1970s saying that asbestos was not bad for you. We are in this place to protect the people who elected us to come in here. PFAS is a massive danger to all our communities.

That is why I do not want to come in here and just get it banned from being dumped in McLaren Vale; I want it banned from every town, from metropolitan Adelaide and from any agricultural lands in our state. I hope we get the support of those opposite because I am pretty sure that the people of King, the people of Colton and the people within all the seats represented by government members do not want this in their electorate either.

I will be writing to the environment minister seeking the government's support on this bill, and I hope we get it because we are the defenders of our environment. We cannot leave it up to the EPA if they are willing to just turn a blind eye to this sort of stuff and say they are following all the rules and regulations. If that is their excuse, we need to change the rules and the regulations and the laws of this state. I look forward to getting the support of the crossbench and those opposite.

Debate adjourned on motion of Dr Harvey.