SENATE

Thursday, 13 October 2016 SENATE 93
Australian Bankers Association and the banks for being considerate and listening to my calls. I do not think there
are going to be any problems for the residents as far as their mortgages go, so long as it is about the valuation and
not, as I said, if they are running a business and their business is in trouble or for some other reason their cash
flow has been dramatically reduced.
It is a very testing time for these people at Williamtown. This PFAS—that I had never heard of before I found
out about it this week—is a serious chemical. There is talk about its listing on the Stockholm listing of chemicals.
I think it is a case of banning these chemicals. The case I want to put is: what can the government do? The first
thing we are doing is supporting these people, with some money going in from Defence to help Hunter Water put
water into these houses that are not on town water so that they can be supplied with clean water. That is a good
plus in itself. Certainly, we are helping them in the health department with the situation of blood tests and so on.
There is also some mental health support, which is most important. Imagine if you lived there, Mr Acting Deputy
President O'Sullivan, and you found yourself under financial pressure. You had bought a property and house that
might have been worth $500,000. All of a sudden, you think it is worth $300,000—or even less. You owed
$200,000 or $300,000 on your property and you thought you were getting ahead. You had half your house paid
for—its value—and, all of a sudden, you were back to owing the whole value of the property. It is not a good
thing to have on your mind. Mental health issues may be a serious problem there as well. I certainly hope that the
Department of Health are doing all they can to assist these people through these tough times.
As far as I am concerned—and, Senator Burston, you would know more about this than me—we need to go
right through this testing to see where the pollution is. The first thing to do is to stop any further pollution. No
doubt these chemicals are no longer being used by the Defence department. We need to see that the pollution does
stop—that this PFAS is not being used. Then we need to do the testing of the soils and the water to see how far
the pollution has spread. We need to see if it is from the source of the Defence department and prevent the
spreading. Then we need to see what we can do to clean up the mess.
As far as I am concerned, if it is the cause of the Defence department and the property values are seriously
devalued, then I think the Defence department should compensate those people for the devaluations. As I said,
they may be just living in their house—they have bought a property; they may have bought a block of land there,
Senator Burston, and built their house—and thinking that everything is hunky-dory and fine. Then, through no
fault of their own, just because of where they bought—near the Air Force base at Williamtown and at Salt Ash—
they have suffered an enormous financial blow because of someone else or some department. I should not say
'someone else'; many people would have made these decisions, and they would have been advised, no doubt, years
ago that these PFAS foams for fighting the fuel fires were safe, effective and the new modern way to put these
fires out, especially in the case of emergency. If you had an airline crash, or whatever, and fuel had spilt
everywhere, you would need something very effective to put that fire out. It could be a case of saving lives at the
time. It would have been a great invention at the time. But many chemicals were great inventions—arsenic for
drenching ship and dipping sheep for lice. Everything was a great invention years ago on the farm until they were
banned and until people realised the carcinogenic effect of such dangerous chemicals. This may be a case of the
same situation with this PFAS, where they have designed something—invented a chemical that is very effective
for fuel fires—only to find later in life that, 'Hang on; this is not a pure chemical. It's actually a pollutant; it's
dangerous. It can cause enormous damage to the environment and to people.' Who knows! I am not a doctor; I am
not a specialist in this field.
I do sympathise with those people for what they are going through. I have done my best and I am very
confident that the financial institutions will stick with them through this period of research, which I think must be
carried out, to research the level of pollution, of contamination, so to see what can be done to clean it up, and how
it can be cleaned up. If it cannot be cleaned up and if the people have to be moved out of there—I do not know the
final situation; I have not visited there. But I hope that in the near future I can go down to Salt Ash to talk to the
locals and see what we can do for them.
I thank the journalist for bringing it to my attention. I am sure that she appreciates very much the work I have
done to contact the banks and institutions to see that those people are not under severe financial pressure and more
stress. Only time will tell, but I know that the department is certainly working on it. I have discussed it with
Minister Payne. She is very aware of the situation. When I phoned Minister Payne she was in America at the time.
Thankfully, she rang me as soon as she could. She rang me straight back after I texted her to give me a call to
assess the situation. She is certainly onto it, and so is the Department of Defence. I repeat that—
Senator Cameron: 'On to it'?
Senator WILLIAMS: Senator Cameron, when did this first occur? If you want a political argument, I will
gladly take you on. Had this PFAS been distributed when you were in government? Should I ask the question:
what did you do for Williamtown in your six years in government?
CHAMBER