Doctor recommends signing on to convention

AN OCCUPATIONAL physician has recommended Australia should ratify the Stockholm Convention, 14 years after it was created.

Dr Andrew Jeremijenko, who works at the Mater Private Hospital, said it was imperative Australia signed up.

Dr Jeremijenko made his recommendation to the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry into the management of PFAS contamination in and around Defence bases yesterday.

The Stockholm Convention was an international environmental treaty, signed in 2001 and effective from May 2004, that aimed to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants, such as PFAS.

Australia was one of seven countries involved in the convention that did not ratify it.

“All these countries we are allied with have moved over and signed the convention, why hasn’t Australia,” he said.

Dr Jeremijenko said several other things the inquiry could recommend would be to improve the official health advice and ban PFAS across Australia.

“These people here don’t have to suffer any more, we can ban it and stop it spreading,” Dr Jeremijenko said.

He said he worked with businesses that now used PFASfree fire fighting foam.

Foam with PFAS leaked into an aquifer below the Oakey Army Aviation Centre, and was the main cause of the contamination.

“You don’t need to use these dangerous foams any more,” he said.