Don't Leave Our Firefighters Behind: Government Must Extend $2 Billion 3M Action To Cover Veterans Poisoned By PFAS

MEDIA RELEASE

The Returned & Services League of Australia (RSL) is alarmed that the Government’s landmark legal action against 3M, brought to recover the cost of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination at 28 Defence bases across Australia, turns its back on the very veterans who handled these chemicals. The land is being defended. The firefighters who were exposed to it are not.

The Government is pursuing more than $2 billion in the Federal Court of Australia to recover the past and future cost of investigating and cleaning up contamination caused by the historical storage and use of 3M’s aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF). It is the same foam our firefighters sprayed, stood in and breathed for decades.

RSL National President Peter Tinley AM is calling on the Government to widen that action to recover the cost of caring for veteran firefighters. These are men and women routinely exposed to these substances from the 1970s through the mid 2000s, and who are now paying for it with their health and their lives.

“Today, statutory compensation reaches only a small cohort of former Air Force trainee firefighters. Thousands of Defence personnel across the ADF handled these deadly substances as part of their everyday duties, and most have never even been tested, let alone supported,” Mr Tinley said.

The cancer risk to firefighters is recognised by health authorities around the world. The recent Senate Committee on PFAS drew together Australian and international research and found a strong evidence base linking firefighters’ direct occupational exposure to rare cancers, tumours, birth defects, kidney failure, neurological damage and a host of other serious conditions. This is not speculation. It is documented harm.

Ian Knight, a former Army firefighter and spokesperson for the Retired Firefighters’ Group, said veterans were devastated.

“The Government is taking this legal action without a single mention of the Defence personnel poisoned by PFAS,” Mr Knight said.

“It recognises the damage done by PFAS that leached from Defence bases into nearby water tables, yet it completely ignores the Defence firefighters who were exposed to those very chemicals in their day-to-day work.”

RSL is urging the Government to extend its action against 3M to recover the cost of supporting affected veterans, and to guarantee that every Defence member exposed to PFAS has access to health testing, ongoing care and fair compensation, with no exceptions.

“Extend the action. Include the veterans. That is what justice looks like,” Mr Tinley said.