Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Silicosis is the fastest-growing occupational disease. The rates of this and other respiratory diseases in Australia are unacceptably high. These are entirely preventable illnesses and often result in entirely preventable deaths. In a nutshell, when oil, sand and granite are worked on during blasting, crushing, cutting and drilling in construction and associated industries, such as tunnelling, quarrying and mining, silica is released as a very fine dust. One of the most potent sources of silica dust is engineered stone, used mainly for kitchen benchtops. When breathed in, this dust is small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs, causing irreversible lung damage—silicosis. It's incurable, progressive and fatal. About 600,000 workers are exposed to silica dust every year, with about 350 diagnosed with silicosis and 250 with lung cancer.

In June 2021, the Australian Workers Union brought a delegation of silica dust victims here to Parliament House. I met with a 35-year-old mum of two, Joanna, who contracted silicosis after working in an administrative role at a quarry for seven years. She said:

It's the unknown that is so terrifying. With silicosis there is no cure, and you just don't know how it will progress.

Joanna is angry, rightly. She says that she 'should never have been exposed to this disease'. I also met with 53-year-old Kevin, who worked for his company for almost 28 years. He says he wasn't aware that he could get silicosis from what he was doing. He said:

Every day, walking around the site, we thought we were OK and safe, but we weren't. For years we had inappropriate PPE, safety rules and regulations. I was even offered second-hand equipment. This should have never happened.

Sixty-one-year-old Craig worked at a Victorian quarry for 36 years, until he was diagnosed with silicosis in 2019. He said:

My health, family, work, and finances have been devastated. Silicosis has affected my day-to-day life and completely changed my lifestyle. Life now revolves around going from one specialist to another and frequently visiting the hospital. I feel shattered. I will not be able to see my granddaughter grow into an adult, spend time with my wife and loved ones and be there for my family.

Six hundred thousand workers are still being exposed to silica dust every day. A Curtin University study estimates 103,000 workers will now be diagnosed with silicosis as a result of their current exposure to silica dust. The rate of silicosis will skyrocket in coming years if swift, preventative regulatory and compensatory measures are not quickly adopted. Our government is taking this seriously. We are undertaking a suite of reforms to make sure Australia's prevention and treatment measures are world-class. We must protect workers from unacceptable health risks. We are developing a national silicosis prevention strategy and national action plan. We are investing in educational campaigns for employers, workers and health professionals to improve prevention, detection and treatment. We are exploring measures to limit the use of engineered stone, including an import ban, and we're working with states and territories to ensure we have a coordinated approach to keeping workers safe.

The bill we are debating today, the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill 2023, and its related bills deliver on the recommendation of the National Dust Disease Taskforce to establish a national occupational respiratory disease registry. This will mean that medical professionals will need to notify the national registry so that we can better understand and manage occupational respiratory diseases as well as monitor the prevalence of these horrible respiratory diseases, which will enable action to be taken to further reduce workers' exposure to risk.

The national registry will capture information relating to respiratory diseases believed to have been occupationally caused or exacerbated and support the use of information to understand the true scale of these diseases in Australia and take action to further reduce exposure. Consistent with the recommendations of the task force, initially only silicosis will be a prescribed occupational respiratory disease. The Minister for Health and Aged Care will be able to prescribe other diseases following consultation with the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer and each state and territory.

The bill recognises the potential burden that notification will have on physicians and limits the mandatory elements that must be notified to a minimum notification. Minimum notification will include sufficient information to identify an individual with a diagnosed occupational respiratory disease; the respiratory disease diagnosed; and details on the likely exposure that resulted in the disease, including the last and main exposures. Further additional information can also be supplied where the individual has provided consent and may include relevant medical test results, demographic and lifestyle information, such as their smoking history and employment status, and details of each job where the individual believes they have had exposure to a respiratory disease-causing agent.

In addition to ensuring notified information is available to the physicians treating the individual, the bill will enable the disclosure of notifications about an individual made to the national registry, including to prescribed Commonwealth state and territory authorities and state and territory health agencies and work, health and safety agencies. The disclosure to state and territory health agencies and work, health and safety agencies will increase the awareness of the prevalence of these occupational respiratory diseases and will enable action to be taken as a result of the information we are gleaning from the development of this registry. Where notification is mandatory in state legislation, the bill provides for notification of these diseases to occur through the national registry, should the state also allow that. This will remove the potential for a physician in those states to notify twice—that is, once nationally and once again on the state register. This is important to assist physicians and not overburden them.

The establishment of the national registry will complement actions across all Australian governments to reduce these exposures in the workplace and demonstrates our government's commitment to keeping workers safe, because we are committed to keeping workers safe, as I'm sure all members of this parliament are. We need to do this, and we need to do more. We need to do this for Joanna. We need to do it for Kevin. We need to do it for Craig. We need to do it for their families, and we need to do it for so many more like them that are suffering and to make sure that we can reduce, limit and cease more people and their families suffering in the future.

I commend the bill to the House.

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