Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a servant to the different people who make up our one Queensland community, today I raise, once again, the failure of successive governments to deal with the issue of PFAS. The PFAS group of chemicals are man-made chemicals that remain active in the environment essentially forever, hence their common name 'forever chemicals'. More importantly, exposure to PFAS is accumulative. Consistent exposure to a low level of contamination causes PFAS to build up inside the human body. The European Union has accepted PFAS can cause reproductive cancers, increased miscarriage risk, low sperm counts and immune system deficiencies.

The United Nations introduced the Stockholm convention on persistent chemicals in 2009 to control PFAS, and recently the European Union imposed a limit of 4.6 nanograms per kilo of body weight as the maximum daily intake. Australia has consistently refused to introduce a limit on PFAS exposure. We are falling behind the rest of the world, and that's a threat to our food exports.

Now PFAS is back in the news with the revelation that cardboard food products are using PFAS to provide waterproof coatings in utensils and disposable containers. Last month it was revealed that paper straws contained PFAS to stop the straw going soggy. If you have a chemical that builds up in your system and causes serious illness over time, of course the place you would put that chemical is in a drinking straw! Yes, of course. The type of PFAS found in straws was banned in the European Union in 2020 because it is dangerous.

In March the US FDA indicated there was no safe limit for PFAS in drinking water and proposed a limit of 0.004 nanograms per kilo of body weight. In June the Sydney Morning Herald reported that federal health bureaucrats tried to change an Australian National University study on cancer spikes from PFAS contamination in defence bases to avoid raising undue alarm. The Labor government promised compensation. The Labor government needs to honour that promise. PFAS is not going away. (Time expired)