Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for bringing the review and his initial response to the parliament this morning. All members of the House support the need to ensure that when a mum or dad waves goodbye to their children in the morning they come home from work safely to still be there in the afternoon. As the mother of a newly graduated electrician who spends a large part of his days crawling through roofs and therefore encountering asbestos on a daily basis, I like many other Australians have worried about this issue. I have sought reassurance that the best possible workplace practices are there for my son in his workplace.

We in Australia have the highest reported per capita incidence of asbestos related disease in the world. It is estimated that by 2020 there will be 13,000 cases of mesothelioma in Australia. A further 40,000 Australians will contract asbestos related cancer. Mesothelioma and asbestos related cancer are different in the way that they affect families. These cancers do not affect you today or tomorrow but in 10, 20 or 30 years or even longer after exposure.

As a local member in a large rural electorate in western New South Wales, there are many communities with old houses and people on low and fixed incomes, people who you would say are on the fringes of society. Over the years I have seen and heard of too many who have passed away because of exposure to asbestos. These are the stories that not only cripple the families and friends but impact entire communities. While Australia has had a nationwide ban on the production, importation and use of asbestos since 2003, many buildings in Australia still have asbestos or asbestos products within them which put at risk in particular do-it-yourself home builders and renovators.

This review and its response arguably deal with the conventional, but we may need to broaden our response to a whole-of-government one. Thousands of cheap Chinese cars are coming into this country with asbestos in their exhaust gaskets. The authorities are grappling with the realities of what a recall would involve, because in the case of an exhaust gasket you may never need to touch it, but if you decide you have to remove it the gasket could perhaps break down and you would have to scrape it out of the exhaust. That is where the problem arises. You may in fact be creating a problem by issuing a recall. This highlights the complexity of what we are dealing with.

The coalition supported the establishment of the asbestos management review in 2010 and we support action to stop the continued exposure of Australians to asbestos. We have not had the opportunity to examine this review in detail. However, on the face of it, most if not all of the recommendations seem reasonable and we are of course prepared to work with the government to advance this to the next stage. I do agree with the minister that this is a critical and urgent issue that requires all tiers of government to work together to provide a positive outcome.

I urge the minister to broaden his consultation on how the strategy is implemented. The government needs to involve the builders, the tradesmen and the small business contractors—the people who are working at the sharp end. I ask the minister to expand the consultation to these practitioners who are working at the coalface, the people who contend with the health concerns, the physical realities and the cost of the potential removal and amelioration of asbestos hazards on a day-to-day basis. As yet in this broad, high-level strategy we have not heard their voices and we do need to seek their advice.

I note the minister's comment on the recommendation that, as part of the Australian government leading all jurisdictions to develop a national plan for asbestos management, a new national agency be created to have the responsibility for implementing such a plan. The coalition will not stand in the way of sound public policy initiatives issuing from this parliament to reduce the scourge of asbestos. But I make the point that since Labor came to office in 2007 we have had so many new national partnerships, national approaches, national agencies and new bureaucracies and I am not convinced that they always achieve what they set out to do, although they are very good at spending public money here in Canberra. Perhaps the actions that we need to take could be taken within existing structures at state level, allowing the funds to flow to communities, to awareness raising and to the actual task of identifying asbestos related risks.

In conclusion, may I say that we do believe it is important to address this in a bipartisan manner so that we can ensure that Australians are not struck down by this disease and can live to see not just their children grow up but their grandchildren and even their great-grandchildren. I appreciate the minister's swift action in returning, I understand, to the House within not too many more weeks with the next stage of the process.

See this speech in context