Bills

Environment Protection (Disposal of PFAS Contaminated Substances) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 14 October 2020.)

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:47): I rise today to make a contribution on the bill that is before the House of Assembly. This bill, as members would be aware, was introduced into the House of Assembly on 23 September 2020 by the member for Mawson and seeks to amend the Environment Protection Act. The amendment bill seeks to restrict the granting of an environmental authorisation for the disposal of what is commonly known as PFAS under the Environment Protection Act 1993.

Members would be aware that PFAS are a group of synthetic chemicals that have been extensively used in consumer and industrial projects since the 1950s. They were used to manufacture non-stick coatings and products that require resistance to water, heat, fire, stain and weather, and in some types of firefighting foam. It is often in the contamination that has come from firefighting foam that the use of PFAS has been most prominent in the public domain to date.

There are currently no landfills in South Australia licensed to dispose of PFAS-contaminated waste. There is, however, an application from Southern Waste ResourceCo to receive, treat and dispose of solid PFAS-contaminated waste at its existing EPA-licensed landfill in McLaren Vale.

The amendment bill seeks to restrict the granting of an environmental authorisation for the disposal of PFAS-contaminated substances if a landfill depot is located or proposed to be located in whole or in part of the Greater Adelaide Planning Region, within the meaning of the Planning Development and Infrastructure Act 2016, or within 50 kilometres of land used for the business of primary production, or within a township or five kilometres from the boundaries of a township.

I inform the house that the government intends to oppose the amendment bill in this house for the following reasons. There is an Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Framework for Responding to PFAS Contamination. The Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Framework for Responding to PFAS Contamination is a national agreement between the commonwealth, states and territories which aims to deliver risk-based responses to PFAS contamination that prioritises the wellbeing of affected communities and the protection of the environment.

The intergovernmental agreement complements existing guidance and legislation that works to protect human health and the environment from harm caused by chemical contaminants. The intergovernmental agreement was originally signed by the former Premier of South Australia, the Hon. Jay Weatherill, in February 2018, when the member for Mawson, the deputy leader, the leader and the member for Kaurna were members of the cabinet.

The intergovernmental agreement includes a number of appendices that address health and environmental protection as well as advice and communication within affected communities. The PFAS National Environmental Management Plan is included as one of those appendices to the IGA. The PFAS National Environment Management Plan was developed by the heads of EPA in Australia and New Zealand and provides nationally agreed guidance on the management of legacy PFAS contamination in the environment.

The PFAS management plan has a focus on all parties taking all reasonable and practical measures to prevent or minimise potential environmental harm from PFAS-related activities and contamination. These actions include ensuring PFAS waste, contaminating materials and products are effectively stored or remediated to prevent release; ensuring proper disposal of PFAS-contaminated waste, for example, by properly characterising waste and sending it to facilities licensed to accept it; and undertaking appropriate monitoring to check the effectiveness of management measures implemented.

The management plan has also created a framework for how offsite disposal to landfill sites would be managed. The South Australian EPA has taken this information and used it to develop the landfill disposal criteria for PFAS-contaminated waste. The EPA has taken a precautionary approach and adopted only the two most conservative acceptance criteria included within the PFAS management plan and its landfill disposal guideline.

South Australia also has a strong regulatory framework that enables considerable assessment to be given to landfill proposals from their design and location, the waste that it will receive and the necessary controls to protect the health of humans and the environment over the life of the activity. A landfill proposal firstly requires development approval under the PDI Act and, once that has been obtained, assessment for an environmental authorisation under the Environment Protection Act can be finalised for the operational aspects of the landfill activity.

The EPA's assessment of landfill development applications includes consideration of the soil and hydrology at the proposed site; separation distances to sensitive receivers, particularly from an air and water impact perspective; the nature of the proposed waste types to be disposed of; and design, construction and management details that will affect potential pathways for contamination of surface and groundwater resources.

Since the PDI Act already imposes the framework for assessment of location and design risks, the inclusion of such criteria in the Environment Protection Act, as proposed by the amendment bill, would be duplicative and unnecessary. The EPA has strict criteria around the disposal of PFAS-contaminated waste and will approve an application only if landfill operators can demonstrate they have appropriate mechanisms and engineering in place for testing, handling and disposal of this waste. The approach is consistent with the EPA's existing requirements for the disposal of waste contaminated with other chemicals to control and mitigate the mobility of contaminants to the environment.

Any blanket ban on the disposal of PFAS-contaminated substances at waste depots within the Greater Adelaide region within 50 kilometres of land used for primary production or within five kilometres of a township, as proposed in the amendment bill, is likely to exclude the disposal of such substances at almost any location feasible in South Australia.

Removing the ability to provide an environmental authorisation under the Environment Protection Act to landfill sites in South Australia that have suitable controls to manage the waste and minimise the environmental harm from PFAS-contaminated waste would force any contaminated waste to be contained on site—surely, a perverse outcome—or sent interstate for treatment and disposal or disposed of illegally in an uncontrolled manner. Further, disposal of PFAS-contaminated soils to a lined landfill cell allows the contamination to be monitored in a controlled environment.

In contrast, soils contaminated by PFAS can be found on various commercial and industrial sites around South Australia and are often where unknown quantities of PFAS have been released to the environment, such as firefighting training areas or airports. On these contaminated sites, PFAS can leach out of the impacted soils and enter groundwater or surface water bodies. These situations present an uncontrolled risk to human health—for example, through groundwater bores used for drinking water—or the environment in, for example, river ecosystems.

In conclusion, I have every confidence that the EPA has the capacity and the resources to rely on the relevant science. This is what we must rely on. We rely on the EPA to make decisions to keep us safe on a day in and day out basis, and they do so relying on the best available science. As a consequence, the government believes that the regime and the framework that is in place to deal with applications to dispose of PFAS is adequate, it is strong, it is evidence-based, it is science-based, it is robust and the independent leadership of the EPA in dealing with these matters is something that this government backs.

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:56): I rise to speak on this bill and in support of the member for Mawson's piece of legislation that he is proposing to parliament. I think it is a very great pity really that we have reached this stage of having to put forward a private member's bill, which clearly, as we now understand, is not going to be supported by the government and therefore will not pass this chamber and will not become law.

It is a pity because we are dealing with what I think we can all agree is a very serious problem: the problem of a contaminant that is found widely, has been used extensively and its appropriate disposal is yet to be clearly identified and agreed upon. Over the last few years we have come to better understand the extent of the problem of PFAS and yet I think it is safe to say that we are yet to be in agreement across the world about the best way to manage that problem.

In that context, what would have been a better approach I think from the government perspective in the last couple of years in recognising that we do need to work out how to manage this large amount of soil that has been contaminated and caused severe risk to human health, including to people close to members of parliament here, was to have determined a process with the EPA of identifying appropriate locations and appropriate methods of disposal. Instead, what we have had is a preparedness simply to have an application made.

It is, at this stage, entirely lawful for a company that disposes of waste that is very close to the precious food bowl of McLaren Vale to put in such an application. It is also entirely understandable that that community is horrified that that application has been made, that rather than the government seizing the challenge and looking for a positive solution, they have sat back and waited to receive an entirely inappropriately located application.

Not only is there a degree of passivity there to say, 'We will wait and see who wants to dispose of it. It's this one so we better have a look at. We are not going to rule it out of hand despite its proximity,' but also the capacity for the community to engage in that process has been so truncated as to be almost non-existent. I will have to gaze around into the backbenches to be reminded of the number of premises that were officially asked by the EPA for comment: was it six, nine, three, eight? A tiny number were actually contacted and told this was happening. The rest of the McLaren Vale and Aldinga community had to wait to hear about it through the media, through the good offices of their local member, through word of mouth. The EPA was not required to let the community know that such a serious application had been made.

What that means is that you have a community that is not only outraged at the proposition, not only frightened that it might be approved, but also feeling completely disregarded by the instruments of government that ought to be reaching out, asking and listening and working with them. Fortunately, they have an excellent local member in the member for Mawson, who set up a public forum. I attended that, along with some of my colleagues, including the member for Kaurna and, of course, the Leader of the Opposition. There were well over 300 people there—

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell interjecting:

Dr CLOSE: There were 348 people there—we had to know the precise number because the COVID circumstances meant it had to be organised extremely carefully—and they were extraordinarily respectful. The EPA came, and good on them for coming; good on the minister for not banning them from coming like he did for my sand forum in Semaphore a year or so ago—

The Hon. V.A. Chapman interjecting:

Dr CLOSE: He probably couldn't stop them coming in this instance, so that is probably just as well. The EPA turned up, and they are excellent. The EPA people are very good people. They are thoughtful, knowledgeable and respectful, and they listened carefully to what was being said. However, there was no legislation that required them to listen and there was no government policy that required them to listen, nothing that required them to engage in this process. It is just that they are good people and they showed up.

What we heard were very serious concerns from the local community and incredibly well-educated concerns. There were concerns from people who had experience in this field of work, who are aware of the risks of saying yes to a proposal like this so close to where people live, so close to where people grow food and make wine, so close to where primary industry absolutely depends on the safety and cleanliness of the local environment.

The minister has said that this is not to be supported, and I gather he is, at least in part or possibly just pointscoring, relying on something that was signed up to some years ago by the previous government. I am not sure that is good enough, to simply always look backwards and say, 'Well, if something was agreed to a few years ago and at that time it seemed it was a reasonable approach, then that must be forevermore.' We are finding out more about this material, and we are finding out more about how it can and cannot be safely disposed of.

I happen to know that the member for Mawson would rather stop this than have a political win. He would rather do something for his community and, had there been amendments to this legislation or even a willingness to take on the body of the legislation and make it a government bill, he would have been amenable to that. If there had been ways of amending this legislation so that it reflected some of the concerns the minister raised yet still addressed the deep and absolutely legitimate concerns of the community, then the member for Mawson and this side of the chamber would have absolutely been up for that.

Unfortunately, what we have had is delay for some time and now a no. Where does that leave the people who live in McLaren Vale? I imagine they would be pretty frightened. They have asked recently if they could maintain their genetically modified free status, and they have been invited to do that by a piece of legislation supported by the government, but they have been ignored, overturned. Now they are asking if they can be listened to about the security of the food supply, security of their economic prosperity, the security of the safety of their children who are growing up in this area. The answer appears to be, 'No, we don't like the version that has been put up and we're not prepared to talk about any other version.'

That must be pretty frightening for the people of McLaren Vale—and not only the people of McLaren Vale. How about the people of Port Adelaide? If it does not happen in McLaren Vale—or even if it does—is it going to happen in the Lefevre Peninsula, is it going to happen up in the Barossa, is it going to happen anywhere in a place where people live, where they grow food, where they depend on that for their livelihood? We do not know, but we think it must be possible everywhere because this government does not seem to be prepared to have some limits to how and where this material can be disposed of.

I find that very disappointing, and I would like to congratulate the member for Mawson on his initiative in standing up for his community.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (16:04): I would like to speak briefly in support of this bill. I will not cover all the ground that has been covered really well by the member for Mawson and also the member for Port Adelaide. The member for Port Adelaide hit on an issue that I think is very important.

When you understand this decision by the government to oppose this bill and you put it together with the decision to oppose or reject the 11 councils' bid to have their areas remain GMO free, you soon get a picture of this government's inability to understand some of the issues at hand, not only in the area where the member for Mawson lives down at McLaren Vale in the wine region but also in other important food-growing and wine regions.

I listened very carefully to what the minister said. In part, I would have to say I agree with some of what he said, but what is important is what he did not say, what he did not talk about, in the same way the Minister for Primary Industries did not talk about the importance of perceptions around brands for the state and particularly those two regions—the area of McLaren Vale, where the member for Mawson is, and the Barossa region. The economies of those two areas are based on food and wine, and those two areas are based on their strong brands in not only the state and nationally but also internationally.

Those brands depend on certain things because they are competing with other food and wine brands internationally. They are reliant on their brands being seen as clean, green environments—that the food is safe to eat and that the wines are safe to drink—and premium regions providing premium food and wine. That is inconsistent with two decisions this government is making; one is about rejecting the GMO free area. The minister says that by rejecting the 11 councils he still leaves it up to individual farmers or wine growers to make their own GM free decision, but that does not help with the brand.

The brand is not one farmer, one grapegrower, one winery: the brand is the region. That is the brand. It is quite misleading to suggest that allowing each individual farmer to do what they want protects that brand—it does not. It does not protect the brand. The brand relies on the whole region being consistent, and this is true for this current bill. It was true for GMO free and it is also true for this current bill because the reality is that this sort of facility would do great harm to the brands in McLaren Vale and also the Barossa.

For those across there to ignore that very important factor I think suggests that either they do not care and they have given up on these two regions or they do not understand, in which case they have not engaged with the communities, business organisations and peak organisations in their regions. I am only a recent comer to engaging the Barossa region, but the message I get very clearly from the people I have spoken to from industry is that their brand is so important. They need to protect their brand and they need to develop it further.

As I said, this will do nothing to enhance the brand of the McLaren Vale region, the Barossa, the Clare region or any food and wine region in this state. There are other areas we can consider that do not have the same impact on the livelihoods of people. It is a retrograde step to reject this bill. I would certainly ask members on the government side to think about that because I think this bill is a sensible way to progress this issue.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (16:09): Firstly, I would like to thank all those who made contributions and put on the record my extreme disappointment with yet another Marshall Liberal government decision that is a real kick in the guts for the people of McLaren Vale and the wider area through Aldinga, Sellicks Beach, Port Willunga and Willunga.

This is a ridiculous proposition where we would allow PFAS, this deadly toxin, to be taken from sites across South Australia and Australia, brought across state borders and dumped into one of the major food bowls of the world where we have premium produce that gets shipped out to the rest of Australia and to the world on a daily basis. It is an industry that employs thousands of people and is made up of hundreds and hundreds of small and large businesses.

There is no-one in McLaren Vale who thinks this is a good idea. I was at the Remembrance Day ceremony this morning and it was what everyone wanted to talk about. We had 348 people turn up to a public meeting last month. I would hazard a guess that that is the biggest community meeting in South Australia since March this year when COVID caused lockdown and smaller crowds.

I introduced this bill on 23 September this year. The following day, I wrote to the Premier and to the environment minister and sought their cooperation to get this bill through. I was happy for them to make any sort of changes to the bill that they wanted. I would have been happy if a government bill was put up, not just to protect my backyard and the residents and businesses that I represent but to protect every resident of South Australia.

Since we started bringing people's attention to this, it has not become just a McLaren Vale issue. I can tell each and every one of you that, if you represent the people of King, if you represent the people of Colton, if you represent the people of Newland, Davenport, Waite or Schubert, if you are the local member for Elder, if you represent the people of Brighton or Hallett Cove or any other of the 47 electorates in South Australia, you expect people to get up and be angry about this.

I have firsthand experience, with my son having exceptionally high doses of PFAS in his blood system. His mother has well over 200 parts per billion and then we have her husband, who is a firefighter at Largs Bay, who took eggs, fruit and vegetables to the family house that they thought were organic and now they are living with a timebomb. When is the cancer going to hit them? Is it going to be five years, 10 years, 15 years or 25 years? The people of McLaren Vale expect better from this government.

Yesterday, the agriculture minister came in here and said, 'A committee told me to reject McLaren Vale's bid to remain GMO free.' It was a bid that said the damage to the McLaren Vale food and wine industry would be $25 million a year, but the Minister for Agriculture said a committee told him to reject that bid because there was no evidence so he rejected it.

We had the environment minister come in and say, 'We have the EPA running the show.' The EPA did not even want to consult with the people of McLaren Vale. They said they could not have a community meeting, so they brought people in on 30 July this year and sat them down with the proponent. This is like turning up and the judge is sitting there with the perpetrator of a crime and you are the victim. You turn up and there is the judge sitting cosily in the witness box. This whole procedure is a disgrace.

Even the EPA says they are acting within the law. If the law needs to be changed, it has to be all 47 of us in here and 22 people upstairs to change the rules because it is not good enough to have the people of our state, the waterways of our state and the soil of our state poisoned by PFAS from commonwealth sites, such as the RAAF base at Edinburgh and places around Australia. We will take this every day, every week and every month to the next election.

Do you know what my parents and grandparents used to say if I did something wrong and I blamed someone else, like a committee—I did not have a committee; it was a mate next door or something like that—'If little Jimmy told you to jump in the lake, would you jump in the lake?' Show some leadership, Steven Marshall and your ministers, please. The government is elected by the people of South Australia to represent those people. The Westminster system always declares that the buck stops with the minister, so please grow a pair and act responsibly.

The SPEAKER: The member for Mawson's time has expired.

The house divided on the second reading:

Ayes 20

Noes 22

Majority 2

Second reading thus negatived.