Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You might be excused for wondering why those opposite are so obsessed with Peter Dutton. Senator O'Sullivan, I think we should keep a tally during question time on how often they mention Peter Dutton because they seem a little bit obsessed. I think they're getting a little worried. But I digress.

I rise today to speak about a vital agricultural chemical particularly for broadacre farmers—that is, the quats; the paraquat and diquat group of chemicals. These are, along with glyphosate, key to the amazing productivity increases in broadacre farming over the decades. Without these chemicals, the move away from ploughing your field, from tillage, which has environmental consequences as well as significant cost implications—this has resulted in quite extraordinary productivity gains for our broadacre agricultural community. Land that previously had to be burnt and tilled can be direct-drilled so there is minimal disturbance to the soil, and then there is the use of chemicals such as glyphosate and paraquat for crops to be sewn directly into the ground, weeds to be controlled and moisture to be retained. Less fuel needs to be used, and there is less cost to the enterprise and significant improvement in productivity.

When we see the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the ABC, do what they call investigative journalism into the potential link to Parkinson's disease, we expect the ABC to handle this topic in a way that is based on the science and the evidence. This is how we expect our regulators to operate—regulators such as the APVMA, which is one of the most respected regulators in the world in terms of managing agricultural chemicals. We expect the APVMA to look at the evidence, to look at the science and to make a decision based on that science and evidence, and, quite frankly, we should have the same expectation of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation—a government funded media entity which should uphold the highest standards in this regard. Unfortunately, in its handling of this issue recently, the ABC has failed to meet those higher standards and, unfortunately, has caused a lot of fear and distress on the basis of a highly and unnecessarily emotional take on the use of these chemicals—to the point where the regulator, the APVMA, has had to publicly rebuke the ABC for its handling of this issue and for publishing articles about the APVMA's proposed—I note 'proposed'—regulatory decision that make false or misleading claims. For a highly respected government regulator to call out the ABC for making false and misleading claims is quite extraordinary, I think, and it deserves the attention of this chamber.

As we've seen, significant industry players have also come out very strongly against the ABC's handling of this issue. Grain Producers Australia condemned:

… the ABC's choices to rely on hearsay evidence to inform a campaign demonising the use of the herbicide paraquat on Australian farms.

That's a quote from their media release on the issue. I think it's highly disturbing that we're going down this path of not relying on the science, not relying on the evidence, but instead relying on the activist voice on these issues, which are of great concern.

Chemicals are chemicals. Everybody understands that there are risks involved in the use and handling and storage of chemicals. That is why we have regulators, like the APVMA, who look at these chemicals and decide, yes, whether they should be used or not and, once they pass that threshold, how they should be used. These chemicals do not come with a small set of instructions; they come with significant restrictions on handling, storage and, most importantly, the use within cropping systems of these chemicals. It's vital that we preserve that scientific basis for these decisions.

We've seen the strength of the Australian system, a combination of both our regulators and our courts, when compared to other jurisdictions in recent years. For example, we've seen court cases in the US where, sadly, a lot of these decisions are driven by emotion in that you will have a plaintiff, who is seeking compensation because he or she has some dreadful disease, up against a large multinational company. And guess what? Everyone is sympathetic. Everyone is sympathetic in that context, and often you will get significantly large judgements in that context against the large multinational companies. But it's not based on evidence; it's based on emotion. When those same types of court cases have come up in Australia, and we had one earlier this year before a judge of the Federal Court, the evidence has shown that the link to the cancer involved could not be maintained.

We must remain a system that is based on the science, that is based on the best available science. Yes, science never stands still, and we can't rely on evidence from yesterday to necessarily point to the future, but we must surely rely on the best available evidence. I will point you to a 21 September NeuroToxicology article which was a meta-analysis of paraquat and Parkinson's disease. This looked at every previous study. It assessed the quality of each study. It looked at the evidence for and against within every study. It assessed how large the studies were, how much exposure there was and the quality of the evidence provided under those studies. This meta-analysis found that there was—I will quote from this meta-analysis. It said:

The available evidence does not support a causal conclusion.

And that is between paraquat and Parkinson's disease. As far as I can find, that is the most up-to-date meta-analysis on the science as it stands.

We need to trust our regulator. We need our regulator to go through a process that is driven by science, not by activism and not by emotion. And we need to back our farmers who do the right thing. The fact is Australia is a world leader in things like drumMUSTER, which is the collection and recycling of used chemical containers off farm. We are a world leader. I believe that program actually started in Australia. I believe it is now also in Canada. We are a world leader.

Farmers don't want to use a drop, a millilitre more chemical than they have to to get the job done. That is how farmers operate. Chemicals are expensive and chemicals are dangerous. Chemicals are chemicals. Farmers understand that. Farmers treat it seriously. We've come an extraordinarily long way in the professionalism of farmers, particularly broadacre farmers, in their handling, use and storage of these kinds of chemicals. We have to look at what the alternative is. If farmers lose access to these broadacre chemicals—glyphosate and paraquat—then we are going to see significantly more tillage, which will have huge environmental downsides and huge productivity downsides. We still need to feed this planet.