Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the amendment moved by the member for Fremantle in respect of the Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Amendment Bill 2021. Industrialisation throughout the world has undoubtedly lifted living standards and created prosperity, but it has also, simultaneously, caused widespread environmental degradation from the depletion of resources through to the creation and discharge of toxic wastes, which then enter our waters, soils and air. That, in turn, directly contributes to poor health outcomes through contaminating the food and water that we consume and the air that we breathe. Regrettably, it is sometimes years later that those health effects become apparent. In the interim, people suffer and sometimes die.

All of that was so well highlighted in Erin Brockovich, the film based on the 1993 case against Pacific Gas and Electric Company of California. It was successfully sued for some $333 million for discharging hexavalent chromium into groundwater between 1952 and 1996. The case went to court in 1993, almost 30 years later, which just highlights how sometimes it does take years for these problems to manifest and then be acknowledged, whereby remedial action is taken or the activities are ceased, whatever is the case.

In my view, the Brockovich case is just one of countless similar occurrences throughout the world which, I suspect, have never been investigated but similarly have caused incredible suffering to the people in and around the area where those events occurred. It's happening right now, as we speak, in so many places around the world where hazardous waste is being discharged or dumped into waterways, landfill and oceans. A real concern I have is that it's happening more so in developing countries, where there is little or no oversight of industrial and mining operations and what happens with the waste that is created. It's much, much easier just to quietly bury or discharge waste into waterways, where it's supposedly never seen again. It is a cost saving to the operators if they can get away with it, and quite often they do get away with it, either because of poor oversight or because of, it is alleged, corruption within the governments of those places.

There have been serious examples of similar wrongdoing here in Australia over recent years, some of it deliberate and some of it not so. What is particularly concerning is that in most cases it occurs under the stewardship of what I would have thought were reputable companies—reputable international organisations that actually do know better, understand the harm they are doing, employ scientists and the like, but simply don't care, if they can get away with it, because it adds to their profit bottom line. These are quite often entities that, as it is, make huge profits and know exactly what they are doing and what is happening.

As I said, it's happening here in Australia. In recent years we have gone through the process of trying to determine which sites have been contaminated with PFAS. That was fairly widespread. I accept that much of that was done unknowingly, but I don't believe it's always done unknowingly, and it does occur. I've heard reports in recent times of asbestos still being illegally dumped by so-called reputable organisations—again, when and where they can get away with it. Asbestos, as we know, is very much a toxic product.

I want to talk about one particular issue because it relates to the state of South Australia and my own electorate. Only this year extensive mangrove dieback was detected at St Kilda in South Australia. It was being caused by the discharge of saline brine from neighbouring defunct salt-mining operations. These mangroves are critical to South Australia as an environmental asset. They are the state's major fish breeding grounds as well as being home to an international bird sanctuary. That is the significance of them. Years ago, because of their importance, the City of Salisbury spent millions of dollars in establishing dozens of wetlands and water-harvesting schemes, the key objective being to prevent polluted urban waters from entering the Barker Inlet and destroying the St Kilda mangroves and seagrasses, which at that point were already in decline. As a result of the water-harvesting schemes established by the City of Salisbury, the dieback was reversed. Indeed, the regrowth that had started to occur was wonderful to see. However, in the last two or three years, as the result of one single activity, we're now seeing all of that good work being lost, and the mangroves, the seagrasses and the bird and plant life are now again dying. Why did that happen? It happened because of poor oversight by state government agencies and the irresponsible practice—perhaps unknowingly, I'm prepared to say—of the industrial operator.

My point is simply this: whilst it's good to have regulations—and I might come back to this point a bit later if time permits—it's important that the state and federal government agencies that are charged with the oversight of those regulations are actually able to carry that out. There is not much point in having laws and standards if there is no-one to police them. Most of the time that comes about because governments that are trying to save money start cutting the funding of, and underresourcing, the very departments that are entrusted with that oversight. With respect to the mangroves that I spoke about just a few moments ago, I suspect that the problem was detected more by local community environmentalists than it was by the government departments themselves, which, again, is of concern because, had we not had local environmental activists in that location, the situation might have become even worse than it currently is.

We see that also with the Great Barrier Reef. In recent days, the reef has been the subject of much public coverage, with claims that it could be included on the UNESCO 'in danger' list. The reef has for years been at serious risk, and we quite often—and rightly so—point to the damage that has been caused by climate change. The scientific evidence to support that has been well and truly established. But part of the problem arises because of the polluted water run-off from land that enters the waters in and around the reef and, in turn, contributes to the damage that is being caused to the coral reefs and the like. The reef, as we all know, is incredibly important to Australia. It's a $6 billion tourism asset which, I understand, employs around 60,000 people. It's an international asset. Yet I wonder just how well we monitor what happens with respect to the discharge of water that goes into the waters in and around the reef, and I suspect that, if it weren't for some of the university and CSIRO organisations up in that part of Australia, we would have even less understanding of what is going on. Certainly it concerns me that government oversight of what is happening isn't adequate. With so many issues, that is the real problem. I said earlier on, in relation to St Kilda, that my concern was with respect to the government oversight.

My concern with this legislation is not what it does, because it simply implements the latest recommendations of the Basel Convention relating to transport, both within the country and internationally, of hazardous waste. I have no problem with that. My concern is: will the departments that are entrusted with oversight of those regulations be adequately resourced? I doubt very much that they will be. Indeed, when I looked at one of the issues relating to all this, which was to do with the hazardous waste specialist committee that was set up by the government at the time the legislation was first brought into parliament, I found it very difficult to find any evidence that that committee has even been active. I note that, within this legislation, there is a proposal to do away with the committee and simply seek expert opinion if, and when, required. I have no problem with seeking expert opinion; we should be doing that. But my concern is this: if the hazardous waste committee that was in place has not been actively doing anything, that explains why so many things have gone unnoticed. And that just goes to the point that I'm making, which is that the department is inadequately resourced. We need to ensure that the department is adequately resourced if this legislation is going to mean anything.

The other issue with this legislation, of course, is that much of the detail will be in regulations and is not directly written into the legislation itself. Again, I can understand why you might want to do that; then it could be changed from time to time and therefore it's much easier and convenient to have regulations which can be amended. But, again, it takes that part of the responsibility attached to the legislation out of the hands of this parliament and puts it into a government department.

Finally, and this has been said by other speakers: some eight million tonnes of plastic goes into the oceans every year—that's what's estimated, at least—and I suspect that's doing an incredible amount of damage to ocean waters. But even the composition of that plastic—and I suppose it's why we're dealing with this legislation—literally changes all the time; what was regarded as plastic years ago is very different to the plastic that might be used today. So there has to be an ongoing change to the description of the product.

That brings me to the point about what hazardous waste is. When I looked up the definition of 'hazardous waste' it was so complex and convoluted that it would literally take a lawyer to explain to me what would fall into the category of hazardous waste and what wouldn't. Nevertheless, we could take the overarching view that all waste in one form or another can be hazardous and treat it that way—I suspect that's the intent of this legislation. Then at least we'd have a mechanism by which we might regulate the discharge of any sort of waste into our waterways, air or soils. That should be the objective of this legislation.

I believe it's a very important piece of legislation in as much as we won't have an economy or the lifestyle we have now if we destroy our environment. This kind of legislation goes to the heart of securing and ensuring that we have a sustainable environment.

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