Wednesday, 2 April 2025

Water quality

Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (18:51): (1576) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Water. The action that I seek is that the government mandate PFAS testing and public reporting for all recycled water and recycled water biosolid products, starting with the Werribee catchment, and ensure that our farmers are not liable for any of the prior contamination from using these products. For over two years I have raised concerns in this place about recycled water, biosolids and the risks of PFAS contamination in my electorate and this state, yet despite these repeated warnings the government continues to roll out major projects, like the Werribee system reconfiguration project, without addressing the most basic question of all: is this water and is this soil actually safe? These projects promise water security, but they do not guarantee water safety.

PFAS, toxic long-lasting chemicals linked to cancer and immune disorders, are almost completely absent from Victoria’s planning documents and risk frameworks. We know that reverse osmosis removes some PFAS from recycled water, but the biosolids and sludge left behind are still being spread across farms in Werribee, Melton and Bacchus Marsh without mandatory testing or any public reporting. If the land has already been contaminated from past applications, no-one is checking, no-one is warning landowners and no-one is measuring bioaccumulation in our food. Worst of all, nobody is taking responsibility. Even the government’s own safe drinking water report, which was released yesterday, confirms it. PFAS is not part of our routine water testing. PFAS in biosolids and sludge is not covered at all.

While the technical standards may be the same statewide, the experience in my region is not. Greater Western Water recorded a 44 per cent increase in complaints about water quality, but Melbourne Water, which services the east, recorded none. This is not just a gap in infrastructure, it is a gap in fairness and transparency, because clean water and safe soil and public trust are just the very basics of good governance and the very least of what we deserve.