COMMITTEES
Senator HODGINS-MAY (Victoria) (17:59): I also have a long history of farming. I'm a fifth-generation farmer from a farming family near Newlyn, where there is a cluster of people that have developed Parkinson's disease and for whom this is an incredibly important public health issue. The recent decision made should concern every farmer, every agricultural worker and every Australian who cares about the integrity of our chemical safety system.
In June, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority decided that paraquat could remain on the Australian market, subject to tighter restrictions. Let's be absolutely clear about what paraquat is. It is an extremely toxic herbicide.
The regulator itself has acknowledged the acute toxicity risks to people who handle it and has responded by slashing maximum application rates by 80 per cent, phasing out backpack sprayers and requiring enclosed mixing and loading systems. This is not a harmless product. It is an immensely dangerous product, and for years scientists have raised concerns about its potential contribution to Parkinson's disease and other neurological harms.
There's now a significant body of evidence linking paraquat exposure to Parkinson's disease. There are strong parallels to asbestos. How many years down the track are we going to be looking back saying we failed on this as well?
A review of more than 3,000 people with Parkinson's and almost 5,000 controls found a statistically significant association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease, with exposed people having 64 per cent higher odds of Parkinson's. Another review found that people exposed to paraquat had a higher incidence of Parkinson's, including evidence of greater risk with longer exposure.
In Australia, leading Parkinson's experts have warned that the regulator failed to properly engage with expert submissions raising concerns about paraquat's neurological effects. It is not a safe chemical in any sense of the word. It is a highly toxic chemical with the additional risk that long-term exposure may contribute to incurable and devastating neurological diseases.
If there is credible evidence of that risk, we cannot wait to act until more and more people are exposed. This is particularly important when there are serious questions about how the evidence was assessed, as my colleague and as Senator Pocock highlighted. Australians deserve to know exactly what evidence was considered, how conflicting evidence was weighed up, whose expertise was sought, whose expertise was not sought or was overlooked and whether the process was sufficiently independent and transparent.
Our chemical safety system is supposed to put people's health first. It's a no-brainer. It's not commercial convenience and industry profitability.
It's people—farmers, agricultural workers, their families, rural and regional communities. These people are the backbone of this country, and they deserve to know that their government is doing everything it can to protect the health of these communities. Unfortunately, Australia is an outlier.
More than 70 countries prohibit paraquat, including jurisdictions across Europe. China has also prohibited domestic agricultural use. While they remain a major manufacturer and exporter of this chemical, they have banned it domestically.
Meanwhile, Australia says: 'We will keep using it. There's nothing to see here. Keep going.' We don't think farmers should be forced to gamble with their health because governments have failed to invest in safer alternatives.
As a fifth-generation farmer, I know Australian farmers are some of the most innovative people in the world. They deserve better than being told their choices are paraquat or nothing. They deserve support to move towards safer weed management systems that protect their livelihoods and their families and allow them to keep working on the land.
This inquiry needs to be about making sure we are actually following the science and that the regulator is doing its job. It needs to examine the evidence the regulator relied on, the evidence it rejected, the voices it heard and the voices it did not. Ultimately, this is about whether Australians can trust a system that decides which chemicals they're exposed to.
When the chemical is known to be highly toxic, when there is credible evidence linking it to neurological disease and when other countries have decided that the risks are simply too great, we should not simply shrug our shoulders and say, 'She'll be right.' Our farmers are worth more. We should be asking this basic question: how much evidence do we need before we decide that people's health matters more than a chemical company's bottom line?
We need this inquiry.