Jim Molan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak to notice of motion No. 761, moved by Senator Hanson, regarding a national asbestos management and disposal plan. I thank Senator Ketter for his contribution. It was a contribution which certainly contributed to my knowledge, and I think that there are certain facts that I may be able to convey to him that answer some of the questions that he addressed as he spoke. We haven't seen any indication that the responsible body is not doing its job at this stage, but I'm now aware of Mr Tighe's requests and I think action has been taken since those, particularly during the MYEFO, and that may be where this money has come from. It would certainly be worth updating the Senate Economic References Committee on that. Perhaps action has been taken without formal notification back to the committee that this action has been taken.

I believe that the government is working to solve this scourge—and it is an incredible scourge, as Senator Ketter and Senator Hanson spoke about. It is an unbelievable situation that asbestos could get into toys and into children's crayons. I remember that over many, many years in the military it was used in ships and armoured vehicles. It was used in gloves that we used to change hot machine-gun barrels. The commonality of it created that great lottery of whether or not you got asbestos poisoning. Asbestosis existed for many, many years, and who knows why some were touched and others were not touched? So it's a very important issue. It's an enormous issue. Senator Hanson cited the statistic that 700 deaths per year are suffered in this country, and certainly it is a scourge—that is a word rarely used, but it is a scourge now and it will continue to be a scourge for some time. The value of Senate committees in addressing things like this is just becoming apparent to me, as I learn more about how the Senate operates.

Many understand the history, and we've had some exposure to the history from the last couple of speakers, but I will go through that history in a little bit more detail. An awful number of people have suffered, and many are still suffering and many will suffer as we go into the future. In last Sunday's fire at Tathra, as Senator Hanson mentioned, there was real fear about the older houses. Before the building regulations, which I know have been abused in the past, came in, many of the older houses contained asbestos, whether their owners knew it or not. Of course, when a house burns down, particularly on a day like Sunday, where the wind was in the 60- to 70-kilometres-per-hour area, it will spread anything far and wide. In my adjournment speech on Monday night, I spoke about the value of the police, who established roadblocks, often against the will of many people who wanted to get back to their places and see what had happened—and you can understand that emotional response. But the response of the New South Wales Police Force in cordoning off the area and restricting people going back to see whether they had lost their houses or not is something that, in a tragedy, all of us have got to understand. So asbestos is with us each and every day. There certainly seems to be an awareness, and let's see how we are handling that—and I'll go through that in the rest of my presentation.

The one person who seems to symbolise this tragedy is Bernie Banton. Much has been said and written about Bernie Banton. We remember the pictures of Bernie Banton, a man who used to describe himself as 'a man with a hose up his nose'. He was a man who, as a working-class hero, as many described him, led the fight against companies, such as James Hardie, that used asbestos over many, many years and a man whose family suffered incredibly from the work that they did in asbestos factories. In the end, it killed Bernie, as it has killed many, many other people.

What many people don't understand now, I think, is exactly what has been done about solving the asbestos problem. The government is determined to protect workers and the community from what we've described as the scourge of asbestos. The Australian government certainly acknowledges the significant health and community concerns, and Bernie Banton is an example of this—only one example and an example from many, many years ago, but it's still going on today.

It's a complex challenge, and the government's aim is to prevent exposure to asbestos fibres and eliminate asbestos related disease in Australia, as well as to encourage other nations to aspire to do the same. Senator Ketter mentioned the illegal importing of asbestos products by certain companies, some of them Chinese, and the speed with which that was cracked down on. As a Rural Fire Service volunteer I am subject to asbestos training on an annual basis. It's always the frontline worker or the frontline emergency responder who will see indications or the possibility of the presence of asbestos. But we do have a strict asbestos importation prohibition, and the aim of that is to protect Australian workers and the community, and there is in place a strict workplace ban on asbestos.

The Australian government has implemented a comprehensive suite of initiatives to manage the challenging problem. The Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency has been mentioned a good deal today. It was established and is funded by the Australian government to ensure the coordinated national implementation of the National Strategic Plan for Asbestos Management and Awareness. That plan aims to prevent exposure to asbestos fibres and to eradicate asbestos related diseases by coordinating the work of the state and territory governments to prioritise areas of asbestos management and awareness. We have heard examples from various speakers today as to how that is taken on. We saw references in Senator Hanson's presentation to various technologies that she believes may provide an answer. Senator Ketter has said that this has been considered, and this is something that has to be reconciled in some way. So often, we think there is one solution to this. For most problems in the world, of course, there's never just one simple solution—one silver bullet to solve these problems.

As I said, the government has a coordinated and holistic approach. The Asbestos Interdepartmental Committee was established by the Department of Jobs and Small Business and the Department of Home Affairs to 'provide strategic direction and enable effective policy and regulatory coordination in managing asbestos issues across the supply chain' that Senator Ketter spoke about. Through Safe Work Australia, the tripartite national policy agenda on work health and safety, the safe management and handling of asbestos materials in workplaces remains an ongoing priority for this government, and for the state and territory governments as well. The model work health and safety laws for which Safe Work Australia is responsible deal comprehensively with asbestos in the workplace, including through the implementation of a domestic prohibition on asbestos in the workplace—and we have certainly heard today about where that has been abused.

We were one of the highest per capita users of asbestos over many, many years. This is illustrated by the fact that we in Australia mined about 700,000 tonnes of asbestos ourselves, but we also imported an extraordinary 1½ million tonnes for use in manufacturing between 1930 and 1983. We have had people refer in their presentations to a number of ways that asbestos was used. The way it has been used and the way it is being used now has delivered a terrible legacy for Australia. We have described it as a scourge. It's a terrible legacy. It's projected that there will be approximately 19,400 new cases of mesothelioma diagnosed in Australia before the end of the century. We're also witnessing an increasing number of asbestos related diseases, likely caused by non-occupational exposure to asbestos. Between 1950 and 1970, Australia had the highest reported per capita incidence of asbestos related disease in the world.

We know the problem. We have looked back on it. We have heard the reports of the Senate Economics Reference Committee, which reported on this particular subject as recently as October of last year. But there is a national strategic plan, and that national strategic plan is in being and is being applied. There's got to be a coordinated national approach to tackling something like the scourge that is asbestos. So the National Strategic Plan for Asbestos Management and Awareness is a strategy to build Australia's capacity to address the risks of asbestos. The plan supports coordination and common efforts across government, with a strong emphasis on facilitating information sharing. It's got six key strategies: awareness, best practice, identification, removal, research and international leadership. That really forms the basis of every awareness course that's conducted in Australia. The plan is guided by certain principles, and those principles are: precaution, evidence based decision-making, transparency, public participation and collaboration.

Phase 1 of the plan has supported the existing risk management of asbestos and complemented this by identifying evidence and information to reduce risk. It has incorporated research projects and testing of approaches to build the evidence base, and it's because of this I would be surprised if the technical people involved in this strategic plan have not considered the technology solution that Senator Hanson's offering. The second phase of the national strategic plan will be developed during this year in consultation with state and territory governments and stakeholders.

I think this is probably relevant to the point that Senator Ketter was making. In the 2018 MYEFO budget process the government more than doubled the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency funding. So possibly the point that Senator Ketter made may have been addressed before MYEFO, if I've got my timing right on this. This funding ensures ASEA can continue its important work with the states and territories on asbestos management and awareness. This demonstrates the government's commitment to protecting workers and the community from Australia's deadly asbestos legacy. It's a strategic and coordinated approach, which is essential, as I said before, to achieve an end to asbestos related disease.

The function of ASEA is asbestos safety and awareness, and it will receive additional ongoing funding of $1.7 million per year, commencing in 2018-19. ASEA's funding level will more than double from the $1.6 million set by the previous Labor government to $3.3 million per annum. The base level funding set by the previous government was considered inadequate for ASEA to function effectively. The government has now addressed this shortfall and secured the agency's future. The additional funding ensures ASEA can plan for the future and direct resources to longer term work that will achieve the government's goal of eradicating asbestos exposure and asbestos related diseases. We believe that this funding will ensure ASEA is well placed to coordinate the implementation of phase 2 of the National Strategic Plan for Asbestos Management and Awareness with governments at all levels and is able to partner with states and territories to drive priority work under the plan.

In 2008—and I'm sure the committee looked at this—Commonwealth, state and territory governments committed to harmonising workplace health and safety legislation and regulation. They did that by 2012 through the Inter-Governmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in OH&S. It was under this agreement that Safe Work Australia was established to assist the Australian government in handling problems such as this. It was also as part of this overall process that the federal Safety Commissioner was established as far back as 2005. That came from the Cole royal commission into the building and construction industry, which found the safety standards in the industry to be unacceptable. The federal Safety Commissioner has legislative functions related to the compliance of building materials with the performance specifications of the National Construction Code as well as for administering the Australian Government Building and Construction Workplace Health and Safety Accreditation Scheme.

The WHS Accreditation Scheme uses Commonwealth purchasing power to improve workplace health and safety in the building and construction industry by requiring head contractors seeking to undertake Commonwealth funded building work subject to certain financial thresholds to hold the Federal Safety Commissioner's workplace health and safety accreditation. There are seven detailed criteria. I won't go through those seven detailed criteria in relation to accreditation for those companies, but we should all be aware that that situation exists, that accreditation is required and that accreditation is taken seriously.

The FSC, the Federal Safety Commissioner, has the power to suspend or revoke a company's accreditation where a condition of accreditation has been breached. This is all part of the coordinated government action and is done, in the best of government ways, by an interdepartmental committee of Commonwealth agencies, which is represented by government agencies with relevant asbestos management in Australia. So the proposition that there is a simple silver-bullet solution doesn't really hold water, for the simple fact that there is an integrated and coordinated plan and that the Senate Economics References Committee has in fact looked at other technologies.

The interdepartmental committee has in fact progressed work in a range of areas, including testing and sampling. The Department of Jobs and Small Business is currently considering amendments to the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations and the Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulations to provide improved consistency with workplace health and safety laws. The Department of Home Affairs is developing options for changes to the offences and penalties for the unlawful import and export of asbestos detailed in customs legislation. The IDC has met with the National Association of Testing Authorities to discuss asbestos testing and sampling processes, procedures and standards. CSIRO is investigating new and emerging technologies for the detection of asbestos. At the request of the IDC, Safe Work Australia is reviewing the powers of regulators to deal with the removal and disposal of asbestos that has been illegally imported and then used in workplaces. The IDC has also considered options to strengthen offences and penalties for the illegal importation of asbestos. All of this goes to the fact that this is an incredibly complex problem which is being addressed in a coordinated manner.

Senator Ketter and a number of other senators have mentioned the unlawful asbestos imports. We have a strict asbestos importation ban to protect Australian workers and the community from asbestos. The government recognises the importance of maintaining this strict prohibition and will continue to work collaboratively with all levels of government to effectively address this issue. Australian Border Force has significantly increased its operational effort towards addressing the risk of asbestos since the organisation commenced to function on 1 July 2015, with a substantial increase in the targeting and testing of at-risk goods. Examples of implementation activities include stronger engagement with industry and affected members of the public through participation in the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency's asbestos safety and eradication summits, refined processes to address post-border incidents with state and territory regulators, exploring new technologies identified as having potential to assist with border detection, coordination of whole-of-government consultation, enhanced guidance, and increased testing of imported goods to enhance the accuracy of profiles and alerts on asbestos.

This motion that we're discussing today really comes down to: not a simple matter; not a single silver-bullet option. Government is doing excellent work in solving this, and no silver bullet exists. (Time expired)