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

I am pleased to speak for the coalition on the second reading on the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency Bill 2013. As the mother of an 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, are 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. Mesothelioma and asbestos related cancer will not strike today or tomorrow, but in the 10, 20 or 30 years or even longer after exposure. As the local member in a large rural electorate in western New South Wales, I am aware that there are many communities with old houses and people on low and fixed incomes, people, you would say, who 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 also 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.

So the coalition is very supportive of the Asbestos Management Review and its recommendations. Now that we are fully aware of all of the dangers of asbestos and the effects it has on the people exposed to it, it makes good sense for all sides of politics, and the unions and employers to join together to try to overcome the legacy issues that are clearly out there. These legacy issues will remain with us as a country for another 30 years.

This bill establishes a national agency known as the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency, as recommended by the review. Regulation of asbestos issues is a matter for all levels of government in Australia. The prevalence of asbestos in our built and natural environments also means that asbestos regulation spans multiple areas of government, including health, environment, urban planning, and workplace health and safety. The involvement of multiple governments across these diverse areas means that efforts to address asbestos issues have been fragmented and duplicative.

The coalition are strongly supportive of the establishment of this agency and of enacting recommendations to deal with the scourge of asbestos in the community. We have identified a number of issues with this bill, and I recognise that the minister has taken steps to ensure that our concerns are addressed, one being that, despite a clear recommendation from the Asbestos Management Review that all states be involved in the council, the government has restricted membership to include only two representatives from the states and local government. We welcome the minister's decision to expand membership of the council. It is our view that, in order to ensure that the council works well and that all levels of government work together across the country, you do need to have everyone at the table. The one-size-fits-all approach does not always work. We welcome the step in the right direction in the amendments put forward by the minister, but we do believe it would be advantageous to have everyone at the table. Nonetheless, we recognise the government is taking a step in the right direction. We also support the expansion of the powers of the council so that its deliberations can be broad reaching within the confines of asbestos related issues, and not limited by the minister of the day.

I also point out that the coalition is disappointed that the agency's funding seems to have been cut before it has even been established. On 20 March this year, the minister introduced the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency Bill, which pledged in its financial impact statement that the cost to establish the new statutory agency would be $12.3 million over the forward estimates. But in the latest budget, just weeks later, we find the government has introduced legislation and will invest $10½ million over four years to establish the agency. In just six weeks, Labor has cut $1.8 million from its own asbestos regulator, even before it is established. I will invite the minister to explain this cut and detail the services that might not be available as a result. Nonetheless, the coalition strongly supports the bill and the amendments to be moved by the minister.

To conclude, I commend the Australian trade union movement, which has taken a very proactive role in dealing with the issues of the hazards of asbestos. It would be fair to say that, without their active campaigning, things might not have progressed as far as they currently have. I also recognise the minister's willingness to work with the opposition on this bill and the way in which his adviser Simone has worked closely with my colleague in Senator Abetz's office. I commend the bill to the House.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency Bill 2013. The bill provides for the establishment of a national agency, known as the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency, as recommended by the Asbestos Management Review report of June 2012. In the time allowed, I do not propose to go through the details of the bill; they are a matter of public record. What I will say is this: asbestos diseases impact on all of us. We have relatives who have been affected, we have friends who have been affected—and it is not just now; it is going to happen well into the future.

We see these home renovation shows on television. Not all of them give the warning that needs to be given: before you bust open a ceiling or a wall, you should check for asbestos. If you do not know what you are doing, that is going to result in asbestos diseases into the future. We need an education program and we need those television shows to give warnings about these matters. My brother is a carpenter. He can build a house from scratch. We have asbestos in our house in Panania and, when he did some stuff to it recently, he covered himself from head to toe, because he understood what he had to deal with.

That is true in the suburbs that I represent in south-western Sydney, in Hurstville and the Bankstown region along the Georges River, because those fibro houses all contain asbestos. The club of which I am proud to be president, the Revesby Workers Club, has 57,000 members spread around the region, and many of them have been affected by asbestos. Indeed, the immediate past president of the Revesby Workers Club, Pat Rogan, a former state member for East Hills, has recently been diagnosed with asbestos on the lung. My club, in celebrating its 50th anniversary last year, had a book commissioned. It cost us $68; we are selling it at $20 a copy. All that money is going to the Asbestos Diseases Foundation of Australia, a voluntary organisation that specialises in raising awareness in this area. To date we have raised $10,000 for that organisation.

Beyond that, I was invited to an open day and morning tea at Concord by Armando Gardiman, a friend of mine who is a partner in Turner Freeman, to look at the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute at Concord. Armando helped set that institute up. He got a government grant, but it has not had any government grants, as I understand it, since it was formed. It has basically been relying on grants from community organisations, and I know that my club—I can give this assurance to the House—will be doing something in relation to giving money to this research institute. And I know that the research that has been undertaken, which we were briefed on and on which we were asked to maintain confidentiality—they are doing very, very good work.

I said we were personally affected, all of us if we research it. I lost a first cousin 18 months ago to asbestos. He was 33 years of age. His father was an electrician working in the Snowy Mountains area when my cousin was a baby. My cousin played with his father's clothes when his father came home. This is the way he was diagnosed: he was at a basketball game in January or February and he was hit in the stomach with a basketball and suffered great pain. It took a number of months to finally find out what was wrong with him. He was in the final stages, but he had a 15-hour operation and he died from an infection. I say that because it was not just that death that made me aware of asbestos. What that event did was shock me as to how easy it is to get a disease, even at a young age. Normally it is in the older stages of a person's life, because they have been an electrician et cetera, that they suffer from this disease. What we have found over time is that women, wives, have been affected as well.

What is pleasing about this is that both sides of the House are supporting this bill. It is the responsibility of government to assist in these areas, to facilitate. You do not need to be personally affected. And I know the minister at the table, the member for Maribyrnong, has been passionate about this because he has had knowledge of this insidious thing for a long, long time. I have met with people, just ordinary tradespeople. This is not going away; it is actually going to get worse over time. We found out today in parliament about the situation in relation to the rolling out of the NBN and asbestos in Telstra pits. This stuff is everywhere because we did not know about it at the time, and it has been rolled out. It is a time bomb ticking in relation to any citizen. That is why I opened my remarks by cautioning these home renovators—you know, do-it-yourself renovations that are basically not bad ratings on television but have the potential to encourage people to engage in behaviour that could subsequently affect them and their health.

We cannot stop this happening if we do nothing. We are on notice as to how someone can be impacted in relation to asbestos, and that is why I say to the House: this is a good bill to support and send the right message unanimously to whoever is in government and to ensure that we actually build on this. We have an obligation to try to educate and to protect our citizens. No matter how much we are affected or that we know someone who has been affected, there are people out there who are unknowingly walking around with this danger. It is like walking on a landmine in relation to this stuff.

I do commend the bill to the House. I am pleased it has cross-party support, as it should. I do not think that was ever in doubt, in fairness. I see that the member for Riverina has just given me $20 to purchase a copy of the book. Of course, I have a book which I will give you, and I am happy to do it for other members. It is not a bad read, by the way, about the local community. The more important thing is not just its history but the fact that, with a bit of money towards research, we can be confident that we will find a way to stop this thing from growing inside people's bodies. The real key is to try and stop the growth of this disease, to get the research to the stage where it can be stopped. I am quietly confident that, with the professionalism of the people at Concord, we will lead the world in treating this disease. St George Hospital is one of the finest hospitals in the world for assisting people who are diagnosed with this disease. I commend the bill to the House.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Banks for his contribution and, indeed the member for Farrer's contribution before that, which I had the privilege to listen to. I acknowledge the honourable members for their contributions on this important debate about the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency Bill 2013.

I think it is moments like this, with cross-party support, when we hit a high note in the performance of the parliament. Whilst it might not attract the same degree of media attention, it should give some optimism to Australians who expect that parliamentarians will set aside differences in the greater interest of the nation—which I think they do more often than is recognised. This bill is certainly the beneficiary of that attitude. This bill delivers on the government's commitment to introduce legislation to implement the key recommendations of the Asbestos Management Review, ensuring that the health and safety of our citizens is a fundamental role of government and this parliament.

Asbestos is a clear and present danger to workers, to tradespeople, to our domestic and public safety, to home renovators and to the families of people who may risk exposure to asbestos fibres. There is no safe level of exposure to asbestos. Asbestos is arguably the worst industrial menace that we have seen, and it will go on killing for decades. Recent incidents of potential asbestos exposure from materials containing asbestos in Telstra pits demonstrate very clearly why we do need a national approach to asbestos awareness handling and eradication and that this need is urgent.

It has been almost a decade since asbestos was banned in this country, and still we see the dangers of this silent killer remain. Based upon International Labour Organization figures, every five minutes someone around the world will die of an asbestos related disease. This bill is an appropriate and significant step by Australia to become the first nation to progress towards the ultimate elimination of asbestos related diseases. Our aim, our goal, our aspiration and our ambition should be to remove the menace once and for all and to do it over time by working with local, state and territory governments, industry, unions and community. We are working to rid the legacy of 50 years of asbestos use—a substance which we must acknowledge was known to some to be deadly all those decades ago—by miners, workers, tradespeople and householders. We sadly lead the world in per capita mesothelioma rates. Now we have the chance to lead by action.

Until the Gillard government established the Asbestos Management Review in 2010, there had been up to that date no coordinated or consistent national approach to handling asbestos beyond our workplaces. The review made it clear that we must act quickly to prevent Australians from being further exposed to asbestos. We must diminish and prevent that third wave of asbestos deaths which the member for Banks referred to, particularly as a result of people exposed to asbestos in their homes as they renovate.

To do so, the review recommended the development of a new national plan for action on asbestos eradication awareness and handling. The review also recommended that a new asbestos agency be established to have responsibility for coordinating and implementing the national plan. The establishment of a new agency is an essential part of the Labor government's commitment to reduce exposure to asbestos. It will pave the way for a national approach to asbestos eradication awareness and management in Australia by taking responsibility for coordinating a national plan of action.

I can inform members of the House that since the bill was introduced the Office of Asbestos Safety has been working with government counterparts and community partners to develop a national strategic plan for asbestos management and awareness. This first plan is ideally due by 1 July this year.

Also since the introduction of the bill, the government has continued to listen to and to consult with various stakeholders, including state, territory and local government representatives and union and industry representatives regarding the provision of the bill, and also with victims groups and the families of victims. The government has also taken careful note of the issues considered by the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committee in its report of May 2013.

It is worth reiterating for the benefit of the House what this bill provides. It will establish the asbestos safety and eradication agency as an independent body—it will be comprised of a chief executive officer supported by staff—and an asbestos safety and eradication council made up of representatives with expertise in asbestos safety. The new agency will ensure asbestos issues receive the attention needed for a coordinated national approach. The functions of the new agency will include advocacy, coordination and monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the national strategic plan. It will review and amend the national strategic plan as required by the plan or at the request of the minister and it will provide advice to the minister about asbestos safety.

I want to flag for the benefit of members that the government will shortly move a number of agreed amendments to the bill. These are designed to ensure that the bill better aligns with the recommendations of the Senate inquiry and the Asbestos Management Review, and that the agency operates as intended. The amendments take into account the feedback the government has received from governments and stakeholders.

The amendments that the government will move fall into four categories. The government proposes an amendment to provide for an object for the bill. The object will be to establish the agency to administer the national strategic plan, which has as its aim:

… to prevent exposure to asbestos fibres in order to eliminate asbestos-related disease in Australia.

The government will also propose a new section to provide for a detailed definition of the national strategic plan, setting out its aims and providing further detail as to its priorities.

The government proposes amendments regarding the council, including one to ensure the council has appropriate representation by increasing the number of representatives of state, territory and local governments from two to four, and providing for representation by national bodies that represent employers and workers respectively.

There will also be a small number of minor technical consequential amendments, including one that would allow the CEO of the agency to delegate their functions.

In conclusion, this bill establishes the first nationally coordinated approach to handling asbestos beyond our workplaces. It gives effect to the key recommendations of the asbestos management review, putting measures in place to prevent further Australians being exposed to deadly asbestos fibres.

Let me once again remind the House that this is an issue for all levels of government to tackle. It is an issue that has been championed by unions, by individuals and by families touched by asbestos-related diseases, by asbestos advocacy groups, by the lawyers representing victims, by health and safety activists and specialists, by some crusading journalists and, indeed, by many of my colleagues here in parliament, on both sides of politics. To them I again say thank you, and I commend this bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.