LABOR leader Bill Shorten says property buy-backs for Williamtown residents affected by contamination should be considered as part of the government’s response to the scandal.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mr Shorten, who was in the Hunter on Wednesday, said residents in the area have “a fair case when it comes to remediation”.
“Indeed, you look at the acreage of properties which people bought, it's not fit for the purpose which people in good faith believed they were purchasing it for,” he said.
He said it would be “inadequate” for any discussion on the issue “which doesn't concede the responsibility for the mediation”.
“There has to be a discussion about buy-backs,” he said.
Mr Shorten was critical of the Turnbull government’s response to the contamination, saying the way Williamtown residents had been treated was “nothing short of scandalous”.
“The fact that they can't use their own bore water, the fact that they can't grow chickens on their acreage, you know, I think is – it just shows you that this government, the Turnbull Government, is out of touch,” he said.
However Mr Shorten stopped short of saying Labor would support a private members bill calling for property buy backs if one was put forward by One Nation or the Greens.
“Only Labor and [the] Liberals can form a government in this country, and I'm the only candidate for Prime Minister who is saying that we need to open up the question of remediation and buy backs,” he said.
This week the United Nation’s Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee to the Stockholm Convention agreed the chemicals PFOS and PFOA – the main components linked to the Williamtown contamination – were linked to six diseases, including some cancers, and warranted a global response.
However the federal government has said it will not change its advice that there is no substantial proof of significant human health risks caused by the chemicals.
Paterson MP Meryl Swanson criticised that position, and asked “what is our government's position on that convention, and on that opinion of that committee that have just brought that ruling down this very week?”
“We've heard absolutely nothing from them on this, and yet we have many countries around the world signed up to that convention,” she said.
“I want to know, what is this government saying? What is our position? They've been incredibly silent on it.”
After giving a speech to the Australia Workers Union on Wednesday Mr Shorten conducted a tour of Midal Cables in Tomago before opening Ms Swanson’s new electorate office in Raymond Terrace.
