MOTIONS › Defence Facilities: Chemical Contamination
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (16:07): I seek leave to make a short statement. The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute. Senator ROBERTS: I support this motion. It's now been 47 years since DuPont discovered the dangers of PFAS to the human body, it's 40 years since DuPont pulled young women off their PFAS production lines because they knew back then that PFAS damages reproductive health, and it's 15 years since our defence department was forced to acknowledge the dangers of PFAS in firefighting foam. Last month, the state of Michigan in the United States sued DuPont and 3M for environmental damage caused by PFAS chemicals. This followed outrage after the new Hollywood movie about PFAS, Dark Waters—which One Nation is showing here in Parliament House tomorrow night—was released. As in the movie, cattle in our contaminated zones like Oakey and Richmond are unfit for human consumption, yet farmers are being denied compensation and the Department of Defence tells farmers to send cattle to the market anyway. This government is doing nothing to help residents trapped in this nightmare to receive compensation, relocation and remediation—nothing. Question agreed to.