I rise to take note of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade report Inquiry into PFAS remediation in and around Defence bases: second progress report, which evaluates the government response to the initial inquiry that we had a couple of years ago. The PFAS subcommittee, of which I am a member, was re-established after the federal election last year, when the 46th Parliament resumed. It was re-established precisely with the purpose of scrutinising progress on the recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry into PFAS and the government's response to it.

Australian Greens Senator for NSW Dr Mehreen Faruqi has welcomed today’s news that class action participants have reached a settlement of $212.5 million with the government over PFAS contamination, though has labelled the recent government response to the federal PFAS inquiry as extremely disappointing.

Senator Faruqi said:

That the Senate—

(a) notes:

   (i) that the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade tabled its report on the Inquiry into the management of PFAS contamination in and around Defence bases in November 2018, to which the government response is overdue by a year,

   (ii) that in a resolution of 29 July 2019, the Senate called on the Government to provide a response to the aforementioned report,