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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-07-02 Daily Xml
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Dangerous Substances (LPG Cylinder Labelling) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 17 June 2020.)

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (16:22): I rise to speak on this bill on behalf of the opposition. It is always a tragedy when a young person loses their life. It is even more heartbreaking when that death is preventable. Suicide, car accidents, one-punch attacks and the inhalation of toxic substances all take a toll on our community. While we as legislators cannot prevent every possible preventable death, we have a responsibility to act where we possibly can.

I understand this bill arises from the tragic death of a 16-year-old boy in Port Lincoln during February this year. His name is Paddy Ryan. His tragic death occurred after inhaling liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from a barbecue gas cylinder. This is known as 'huffing'. Inhaling LPG is not safe. Even in very small amounts, highly concentrated LPG from a barbecue gas bottle can cause irreparable damage and can lead to death. After a man died in New Zealand of asphyxiation while huffing LPG, the coroner found that 'LPG in the lungs is incompatible with life'.

I met with the family of Paddy Ryan in Port Lincoln last week, along with my colleagues from the other place, the member for Wright, the member for Mawson and the member for Cheltenham. Paddy Ryan's father spoke of the tragic death of his son and highlighted the need for governments to do whatever they can to prevent possible future deaths.

In the past, governments have sought to address similar issues, such as chroming, petrol sniffing and inhaling solvents, to improve public health. The inhaling of LPG should be no different. In her second reading explanation, the Hon. Connie Bonaros acknowledged that this bill will not stop all young people from the dangerous practice of inhaling LPG, but she expressed a hope that it may plant a seed of doubt in the mind of someone who may be about to try.

This bill will be worth supporting even if it saves one life, let alone a handful, let alone many lives. Our parliament has spent much greater time dealing with matters of much less importance. This is by no means the only measure that should be taken to reduce this risk. There needs to be education and awareness alongside legislation for labelling.

In technical terms, this bill adds a new part 4A into the Dangerous Substances Act 1979. The new part 4A creates an offence for selling LPG cylinders without a label that states that the cylinder contains LPG and that LPG may cause injury or death if inhaled. These cylinders are fairly common around the home for things like barbeques, hot water or heating. The penalties for not having this label under this bill are $50,000 for a body corporate and, in any other case, $10,000 or imprisonment for one year. The bill also specifies the size and colour requirements for labels.

Ultimately, the federal parliament should be dealing with this issue. A nationally consistent approach would reduce the burden of businesses having to comply with different rules in different states. But the federal parliament has not acted, despite reports in the media that it may inquire into this matter. Any possible legislation, if it eventuates federally, could be years away and we cannot wait.

There are numerous precedents for states or territories to legislate where the commonwealth has failed to do so. One recent example was when the current state government passed changes to the Fair Trading Act around gift cards in 2018. After a federal solution was put in place in November 2019, the state government moved to repeal the law.

There is also precedent under container deposit legislation that requires labelling for recyclables. South Australia was the only jurisdiction that required this for decades and we faced criticism that it increased costs for producers, but we kept doing it because it was the right thing to do. The Attorney-General in another place herself made a grievance debate speech about payday lenders on 28 April this year. She said:

The national Assistant Treasurer had said that he was hopeful that a draft bill would be released for consultation by the end of last year but was not willing to commit to that time frame. I understood that. However, my office has contacted his office to request an update or clarification as to timeliness, regrettably without any success. Indeed, I received a letter from [the] minister…in March that was a response to one I had sent him nine months earlier. So things still move at a glacial pace in Canberra, let me say.

The Attorney went on to say:

I foreshadowed, at the Consumer Affairs Forum in New Zealand and in this house, that I would act if the commonwealth did not. It is not my preference, in fact, for the state to operate outside a nationally consistent model; however, urgent action was already required long before COVID-19 hit, and none is forthcoming from the commonwealth.

I have therefore instructed Consumer and Business Services to provide me with advice on state-based legislation, about which I have already had legal advice, as to the protections to include a cap on the total repayment amount, amending the affordability provisions based on gross earnings to net earnings, requiring that there be equal amounts paid at equal intervals, not charging additional fees for the ordinary life of the loan in cases of early repayment and preventing these lenders from making unsolicited invitations to current or former customers to apply for credit.

As such, this current government has on numerous occasions legislated in areas where it would be better for the commonwealth to act and asked its agencies to research approaches in these areas. This government has acted where the commonwealth has failed to do so, and that has been warranted on those couple of occasions.

This bill is ultimately designed to reduce the risk of harm, especially to young people. It is a commonsense measure that is not likely to be overly burdensome on businesses. The opposition commends the bill to the chamber and indicates our strong support.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (16:28): I rise on behalf of the Greens to support the Dangerous Substances (LPG Cylinder Labelling) Amendment Bill 2020 and commend the Hon. Connie Bonaros for bringing it before this place. I note that this bill would require a person who sells or supplies liquefied petroleum gas in our state to ensure the cylinder in which the gas is sold or supplied or which is transferred at the point of sale or supply is labelled with a warning label stating that the gas is LPG and that LPG may cause injury or death if inhaled.

We know that this bill has its genesis in the death of a young man, a young man who took a risk, who did not know the dangers and should have had that warning. It is a simple precaution and warning that we can give to ensure that South Australians are kept safe by ensuring a warning label on these cylinders is applied.

I am disappointed to hear, although I would be delighted to be wrong, that the government is not supporting this bill. They say that this should be legislated federally: perhaps I will be proven wrong in a minute. We cannot wait for the federal parliament to legislate on this matter. It is a simple piece of legislation that will prove to be life saving and that will provide timely information to prevent deaths. I cannot see a more compelling reason to support a bill than that.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (16:30): I rise to speak on behalf of government members to this bill, and I join with other members in this debate and other debates to express sympathy to any family who loses a family member as a result of the issues canvassed in this legislation. I place that on the record on behalf of government members. Secondly, the government acknowledges that this legislation will pass the Legislative Council with the support of crossbenchers and the Labor opposition, but the government will not be supporting the legislation for the reasons that I will outline.

First, on all issues that have been canvassed in this debate, one thing that is certainly agreed is that better education in relation to the dangers of undertaking these sorts of practices would certainly be one element of any response. I think all members in this debate—and I am sure there would be broad support in the community—would support better education programs, particularly through our schools on the sometimes dangerous behaviours engaged in by young persons through, in particular, our secondary school system. However, young people leave our secondary school system at the age of 17 or 18, and that is not the end of their sometimes willingness to engage in dangerous behaviours, which places them at risk. So any education program clearly needs to be broader than just what is provided at secondary school level.

Perhaps if I can move to what is clearly, I think, the light on the horizon in relation to tackling this problem, and that is to find a solution. Everyone acknowledges that any form of warning—and even the Hon. Ms Bonaros in her contribution acknowledged it—against dangerous behaviours in and of itself does not solve the problem and is not a solution. We have seen for decades, in relation to anti-smoking campaigns, illicit drug campaigns, anti-drinking alcohol whilst you are pregnant campaigns and a variety of other education campaigns, that they can be useful, but in the end do not always influence behaviour in the ways that people who propose the campaigns would wish.

What I want place on the record, as I said, is I think potentially the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of a solution rather than just an education program. In the hurried discussions we have had to have because this bill was only introduced in the last sitting week and it has been brought to a vote today, we have consulted as quickly as we can with the industry sectors, all of which have indicated that they were not consulted in relation to the legislation, and in fact some were unaware that the bill was even being moved in the parliament.

Whilst I accept on occasions, with some justification, criticism the government has had when it has not consulted as widely on bills, all I can say is that in the discussions we had with a number of important industry sectors and players, they all so far indicated that they had not been consulted in relation to the bill.

As I said, what I do want to place on the record is the potential solution to the problem rather than labels and education programs. Gas Energy Australia, the national peak body for all downstream LPG companies in Australia, as well as the Australian Gas Association, both provided us with the information that, for different reasons which will nevertheless have an important benefit in relation to this particular issue, Gas Energy Australia members, and the Australian Gas Association as well, I am told, have, for a period of time, been working with state and territory government gas technical regulators.

The committee is called the Gas Technical Regulators Committee, and includes the South Australian Office of the Technical Regulator. What is being implemented is the introduction of a new LPG cylinder valve into the Australian leisure cylinder market. This introduction is currently progressing through the Australian Standards approval process.

This new valve, known as the leisure cylinder connect type 27 valve, or LCC27 for short, incorporates significant improved safety features, including a check valve that requires a positive connection with the gas appliance hose in order for gas to be released. The purpose of this is that you cannot have an LPG gas cylinder which, by mistake, you leave open and therefore create a dangerous situation in the home or workplace with gas leaking and all the inherent dangers that might incur, or someone maliciously turning on a gas cylinder to blow something up.

In relation to this particular set of circumstances, the current cylinders do allow somebody to turn on the cylinder and sniff the LPG with potentially dangerous consequences. The LCC27 valve will prevent that. It will mean that a young person will not be able to turn on the cylinder valve and inhale the LPG when the new valve is implemented. As I said, whilst the purpose of this is for broader industrial and home safety reasons as opposed to the issue of inhalation of LPG, it is nevertheless a solution to the problem we are seeking to address by putting a label onto an LPG cylinder.

The advice from Gas Energy Australia is that approval is meant to be through the Australian Standards Association in October this year, with the commencement of the rollout of the new valves in April next year. Anyone who has been involved with new standards and new valves will know that these are very lengthy processes. Clearly, this has been worked on for a long period of time, and I assume there has been an acknowledgement of the need for greater safety in relation to this broad issue for a number of years. Thankfully, we are at the end of the process rather than the start.

I understand that one of the issues in relation to LPG cylinders is that they are imported into Australia to national centres and then distributed from there to all markets. One has to remember that these LPG cylinders are not simply isolated in South Australia; that is, if you are in a caravan, for example, or something like that that these grey nomads drive, you can start in Queensland or Western Australia with your LPG cylinder and arrive in South Australia, so any labelling law that applies just to South Australian cylinders will not cover the length and breadth of the problem. Cylinders will be coming into the market from other jurisdictions. There is no blockage at the border, and any young person can go to a caravan park and, if they are so inclined, pinch an LPG cylinder and inhale the gas, if that is what they wanted to do.

I think, as other members have acknowledged in this debate, if you are going to institute a labelling system as part of an education program, then it clearly needs to be done at the national level. I think members have said the only solution to that is national legislation. That is one solution. The view of some people is that the only solution to a problem is that the government at some stage has to legislate. I am advised that Gas Energy Australia members have been discussing this for some time and have agreed, as an association, to voluntarily incorporate a consistent warning on the dangers of inhaling LPG into the current label which is on an LPG cylinder.

If that is going to occur—and Gas Energy Australia have indicated they have already agreed to do that voluntarily—that is a much better solution than an individual state seeking to take action within that particular jurisdiction. As I said, the cylinders come into a central location, where these importers and, ultimately, distributors of the cylinders throughout Australia, and if it is at that particular stage the label is affixed to the bottle—and there is already a label affixed to the bottle—and if that incorporates this particular warning, that is a more sensible solution to this particular issue whilst we await the implementation of this valve, which is the real solution for preventing anyone inhaling LPG.

All of this we have only ascertained in the last few days as a result of consulting with the industry to find out what is going on. Is there a recognition of issues in this industry sector and what if anything is being done in relation to it? As I said, the valve issue is clearly being discussed for a much broader range of safety issues but the labelling issue is clearly addressed this particular issue. Given that there is already a label, if Gas Energy Australia members are going to do this nationally, then that indeed would make more sense.

Should this legislation pass both houses of parliament, we may well have a situation where, at the national level, there will be a warning on inhalation as part of the national labelling process, and there will be this law, if it was to have passed, requiring another label to be affixed in South Australia as well. So I am pleased to report that the industry, at least on the basis of the advice provided to us at very short notice, is already taking action in these important areas to address some of the concerns that industry sectors have raised.

We consulted the national association that represents the service stations and the other retail outlets which will be caught up in this legislation. Whilst I am not an expert on this, as I understand it there are two options in relation to your LPG bottles at home. You either have a swap-and-go scheme, where you go to your service station or outlet and you just dump your bottle there and you pick up a new bottle and obviously pay for it. The second option is what is called decanting, where you go to a retail outlet with your own bottle and you plug it into a bigger bottle, I assume, and it gets filled up with gas, and you return home with your existing bottle.

I was surprised to learn from the industry association that in South Australia more than half of the bottled LPG dispensed at service stations is of the decanted type as opposed to the swap-and-go type. I must admit that the staff in my office thought that the swap-and-go would be the overwhelming one—and I suspect that is because that is what they may well have used—but the official advice from the industry group is that that is not the case: more than half of the bottled LPG dispensed in South Australia is actually the decanted model. That is, the home owner goes to the retail outlet, plugs it in, fills the bottle up and then pays for it and leaves.

The Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association, a national association, said, 'We haven't been consulted on this bill at all, but does the parliament realise what the implications of this legislation would be?' They said that clearly the swap-and-go would place an onus on some of them, and the responsibility would be that all the new bottles would have to have the label on them—that is relatively clear as to what the responsibilities would be—and they would have to affix the label to the new bottles, or someone would have to, whether it is them or someone else.

Their argument is that the national distributor is not going to do it because you cannot tell whether the bottles are going to be sent from a national distribution arm in Sydney to South Australia or to Western Australia. If there are different labelling laws in each state, they are not in a position to be able to distinguish, so it would have to be, potentially, the local retail outlet that would have to do that.

The issue then is: who is liable for the penalty in relation to the returned bottle? Is it the local service station outlet that will be penalised if they do not put a label on the one they send back to the distributor in Sydney? Is it a penalty for the national distributor or, as I said, the local retail service station who receives that bottle, and what is the requirement going to be for them under this particular law?

The Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association say, in their quick email to us, that they are extremely concerned about the timetable proposed for the introduction, the potential costs involved in the industry and the practical implications of the introduction of the scheme. They also say:

…service station operators who use decanting techniques [in their view] will effectively be unable to sell LPG under the proposed legislation unless a reasonable and zero consumer cost solution is developed [for them]…

They are saying that more than half of the LPG is sold through the decanted model, and their argument—and I can only place on the record their argument because of the short time we have had to consult—is that those service station operators would effectively be unable to sell LPG under this particular model.

Finally, we have only had a chance to conduct urgent consultation with a small group of people. We consulted with Origin in South Australia. They raised some questions in relation to section 26A of the act. They said they had not been consulted, even though they are in the LPG business. They say, on their quick reading, that section 26A:

…would have an impact on every aerosol (LPG) product sold in supermarkets/hardware stores (ie the butane cans) in addition to larger LPG cylinders and tanks and Autogas cannisters for LPG vehicles.

That was their quick reading of the legislation: that it is not just the cylinder, which has attracted the most publicity in relation to this, but that on their reading of the legislation it would apply to a much broader range of products, along the lines that they have suggested.

As I said at the outset, whilst government members obviously share the sympathy of any family that loses a family member in these tragic circumstances, we are encouraged that there may well be a permanent solution, as opposed to labelling—at least it would appear at this stage anyway—to be implemented from April next year. That would be, on the surface of it, a medium-term solution as opposed to best endeavours in terms of education and labelling.

We accept the fact that, whilst that is going on and prior to that, there is a role to be played in terms of education and labelling. In relation to labelling, for the reasons we have outlined, our position is that Gas Energy Australia members at the national level should be encouraged to expedite what they have already said they are doing, which is to have a national labelling system which would make much more sense than a state-based labelling system, and thirdly, in all these areas, greater education, particularly at the secondary school level. But how you tackle it at the post-school level, I guess is a challenge for all who are trying to discourage young people who are not at school anymore from undertaking dangerous behaviours.

Governments have to make decisions. Drug and Alcohol Services present at the committee I chair, which is the Government Communications Advisory Committee (GCAC), and they make judgements about why they choose anti-smoking campaigns and a variety of other things. They have to make a judgement call in terms of spending taxpayer dollars where they devote the maximum resources. Clearly, in the end, they make difficult judgements as to the predominance of a particular dangerous behaviour, such as smoking, which is clearly one of the top of the pops in terms of dangerous behaviours impacting on large numbers of people, and they target their taxpayer-funded dollars to discouraging that sort of behaviour.

Ultimately, agencies like that would need to look at the prevalence of this sort of behaviour and whether or not broader campaigns in the community target in some way ought to be pursued by that particular agency, and they would be the best agency in terms of making judgements as to the need for campaigns, and then, if that is established, the best way of getting that education message out beyond the school years stage, but nevertheless, trying to cover young people who are still wanting to experiment and wanting to engage in destructive behaviours which may well, in the end, lead to the loss of their own lives. With that, we acknowledge that the bill will pass the Legislative Council but the government will not be supporting the legislation.

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:52): I thank those speakers who have spoken in support of this bill and I thank the opposition for their support of this proposal. I am disappointed with the government's response—and I acknowledge some of the points the Treasurer has made today—for what I can only refer to as a stonewalling of a very effective and simple measure designed entirely to save lives.

When I read about the recent and tragic death of Paddy Ryan, I said at the time that none of us want to be in that position. I put myself in Paddy's parents' shoes and thought, 'There but for the grace of God go I.' Nobody wants to be in that position. Paddy made a stupid mistake and it cost him his life. He is not here anymore because of it. This bill, as I said at the time, is designed to deal with precisely that. If it only saves one life, then that is one life worth being saved. I know that it is his parents' dearest wish that no other young person will suffer the same tragedy that Paddy suffered and that nobody will have to deal with the unspeakable pain that they are dealing with.

If a simple sticker on a gas bottle causes a single kid to think about huffing or inhaling LPG or leads one parent to have that conversation with their kids, then this bill will fulfil that purpose. I think we would be absolutely kidding ourselves if we thought that having a label on a bottle that parents saw would not result in them having conversations with their kids about the dangers of huffing.

As I said during my second reading explanation on this bill, when I read about Paddy's death in the media, the first thing I did was reach out to all the young people in my family and say to them, 'I don't care what party you're at. I don't care what peers you're with. I don't care what group of friends you're with. Don't go near an LPG bottle and do anything stupid because it could result in you not coming home.' There is no question that labels like this can have that impact. If our education system cannot provide the education, then parents can do so by having the full knowledge, and that could be achieved by having a simple sticker on a gas bottle.

I do not know who I have been speaking to in the industry who the Treasurer has not, but my very clear advice from them is that they support labelling. I will say that again: they have made it very clear to me that they support labelling. Do they want to see a voluntary scheme? Do they want to see a mandatory scheme? I think they all acknowledge that a labelling scheme is a perfectly reasonable requirement on a gas bottle. I have not heard concerns about having labelling.

As for a national scheme, Paddy died in South Australia, and we are South Australian politicians. We have the ability in here to make laws that protect our communities, and that is precisely what this bill is attempting to do. I do not want to wait for a federal scheme. I do not want to wait for the consultation and everything else that goes with that, for the feds to consult with all the other jurisdictions and decide whether or not they want to go down the path of a labelling scheme across all jurisdictions, and I do not want it to be a voluntary scheme, frankly.

I know there is already support for a voluntary scheme. I know that there are already providers of these products who have indicated to us that they intend to implement effectively what we have outlined in this bill even if we do not press ahead with this legislation, but that does not undo the requirement for this bill. It will serve a very important purpose. I have said it before and I will say it again: the task force into petrol sniffing, cigarette labelling, alcohol warning labels—these all serve a purpose. The benefit that they provide us far outweighs any negative.

We have labels on bottles of water and every drink that you can purchase in this jurisdiction, which up until recently was only a South Australian initiative, and that did not have implications for other jurisdictions. If you want to buy a drink in South Australia, you pay a 10¢ levy. That is the way our system works. So there is nothing preventing us from doing things differently here. There is nothing preventing us from leading the way in South Australia and letting other jurisdictions follow suit in time.

I acknowledge the Treasurer's comments about the valve itself. Obviously, we have made inquiries about that. Adrian, Paddy's dad, is really keen to see the valve changed on all these bottles. I do not know if I agree with the Treasurer's assessment, based on my discussions with industry, of when that is likely to come in. Certainly, the indication given to me is that it will take longer than next year; I stand to be corrected. With or without that, there is absolutely no reason why we should not press ahead with a label now.

I want to make this clear to anyone who is considering their support for this bill: by all accounts, my discussions with industry have been overwhelmingly supportive of a labelling scheme. There are those who prefer a voluntary scheme, there are those who are not fussed either way and there are those who have said, 'You know what, we are going to press ahead. We are going to start printing labels and we are going to start putting them on our bottles, irrespective of what happens to your bill.' But it is nice to know that we have some consistency across the board in this jurisdiction in terms of what the requirement is for those labels, and that is what this bill is trying to achieve.

Again, I thank those members who have indicated their support for this bill. I look forward to speaking to any industry representative, to any association, to anyone who the Treasurer has referred to today, to the Treasurer himself and to the government and putting across some of the information that we have received in relation to the support. I have not heard anyone opposing this scheme. That is not the information that is coming to me. It has been overwhelmingly in support.

I am happy to have those discussions with the government. I sincerely hope, in Paddy's memory, that every other kid out there who is going out to a party this weekend or next, or the weekend after, or is getting together with a group of mates on Friday night, especially teenage boys, who thinks, 'Let's have a bit of fun. Let's get mum and dad's LPG gas bottle from out the back. Let's have a huff,' that none of those kids end up in the same tragic circumstances that Paddy ended up in.

I am not suggesting by any stretch that a label and a label in and of itself will save everyone but, as I said during my second reading, if it saves just one—just one kid like Paddy—then it is absolutely incumbent on us to support this bill today. I do look forward to further conversations with the industry about the timing of the valve. I think that is absolutely critical, because if you take away the problem in terms of being able to huff, then this problem effectively disappears, prospectively but of course not retrospectively, because we still have hundreds of thousands of these bottles in backyard sheds and attached to backyard barbecues all around South Australia and, indeed, Australia.

Again, I am really hopeful that the government is at least willing to engage between the houses, if this bill passes today, on the benefits and the positives that this bill aims to achieve. Again, if it saves one life then that is one life worth saving.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

Bill taken through committee without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. C. BONAROS (17:03): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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