Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few contributions towards the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill and urge the House to support it. I also acknowledge the leadership and the campaign work of the activists in this space and their unions in raising this issue. In quite unfortunate circumstances, people with quite advanced rates of silicosis and other related occupational respiratory diseases took the time to share with us why a bill like this and a reform in this area is needed. Rates of silicosis and other occupational respiratory disease are unacceptably high in Australia. These are preventable diseases and illnesses. Far too often there are entirely preventable deaths if we can just get things right in the workplace and in the health response. We also have the unique opportunity right here, right now, to stop the rise of silicosis and other dust-related diseases from becoming the new asbestos and asbestos-related diseases.

While our government is committed to tackling occupational respiratory disease, I acknowledge from the onset that it is not our job alone—it requires the federal government to work in close collaboration with our state and territory governments as well as with workers, unions and industry. It is essential that the federal government act and take leadership on this matter as it is urgent that we institute measures to lower the exposure of silica dust in Australian workplaces. Colleagues have shared stories of workers coming to tell their tales of how they developed silicosis-related diseases, and those tales are heartbreaking—people who worked with engineered stone, not knowing that cutting and the way in which they cut, and the exposure that they had, would lead to this deadly disease; people who didn't even work with cutting stone—in reception or in accounts—but happened to be in a workplace where dust levels were so high.

Recent modelling by the union movement has shown that, without significant change, 10,000 workers in Australia will be diagnosed with lung cancer related to exposure to silica dust, and 100,000 will be diagnosed with silicosis. Existing safety laws do not provide enough protection for these workers or future workers, and that is why we need to take urgent action. It is good to see that this is bipartisan and that the parliament is working together to ensure that silica dust and silicosis doesn't become the next asbestos. Surveys by the National Dust Disease Taskforce, occupational hygienists and unions show that employers are not doing enough to prevent exposure. More than 70 per cent of occupational hygienists surveyed in 2022 said they were concerned about the overexposure of silica dust in Australian workplaces. Hygienists reported that two barriers to protecting workers were: one, management commitment and; two, lack of financial resource. It's little wonder that we are hearing this—similar reasons were cited during the very slow reform to the asbestos industry over the 1940s and 1980s. I guess that's the point I am trying to make here: we need to act now to prevent silicosis and silica dust becoming the next asbestos and asbestos-related diseases.

Where are we at with asbestos? I am co-chair with the member for Monash of the Parliamentary Group on Asbestos Related Diseases. What we hear time and time again in our forums is the legacy that we have. There is so much asbestos that is out in our built environment. It's estimated that one-third of buildings built between a certain period in Australia have asbestos in them. There are homes, there are government buildings, there are schools and there are hospitals, and it's fine until it's disturbed. With so much asbestos in our built environment, a lot of the shift has gone from the workers who installed it to the DIY people who are doing their own work on their properties. It has in many ways become a huge burden on our health system, as we don't quite know who has been exposed and how they've been exposed, and the education campaign in relation to exposing yourself to asbestos dust is enormous. If you think about one in three homes in Australia built in a certain period as having asbestos, that's a huge education campaign to ensure people are removing or repairing asbestos. It could be any kind of work. You could simply be hanging pictures in your house and nailing holes into the wall or sanding back a wall to paint, quite common tasks that all of us undertake, but if it is an asbestos wall you could be exposing yourself to that dust. Due to the fact that it's in our schools and hospitals, trying to remove it in a way that is safe and not to expose people working in that space is so critical.

We have an opportunity here to get on top of it. Silica dust is quite common, it is fair to say. It is a naturally occurring substance that is part of the earth's crust. We can be exposed silica dust to during mining, tunnelling or road construction. Those are the more natural ways. However, one of the most disturbing ways in which people are becoming exposed and where we are seeing most of the cases of silica dust related disease is with the use of engineered stone. It shouldn't be a surprise. Engineered stone is also known as fake marble out in the community. It has started to be used in benchtops and other parts of finishing off homes. It's a cheaper product, which is why people tend to go for it, but it's also a product that is, to be honest, crap. It's a little bit of stone and then a whole bunch of glue, and I see my colleague across laughing.

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