Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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And good morning. This is the Daily Oz. This is the Daily Oz.
This is the Daily Oz.
Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to The Daily Oz. It's Monday the 1st of June. Happy first day of winter to all who celebrate. Happy first day of winter, Billie. Thank you. I'm Billie Fitzsimons. I'm Elliot Lurie. In case you missed it, the federal government has launched its largest ever court case against a company.
The Commonwealth is seeking more than $2 billion in damages resulting from the historical storage and use of this phone. And it's all to do with Forever Chemicals.
The landmark $2 billion case deals with concerns around how forever chemicals impact local environments and the health of Australians that have existed for decades. So what even are forever chemicals? We'll tell you what you need to know in today's podcast. But first, here is a quick message from Bell in the TDA team.
Hey, my name is Belle and I'm a junior journalist at The Daily Oz. I started at TDA while studying politics and international relations at uni. I joined because I wanted to be part of an organisation that makes news and information more accessible for young people.
TDA wants to be the go-to place for young journalists getting into the industry, where we can learn how to navigate an environment that is changing now more than ever. You can help by hitting follow or subscribe wherever you're listening or watching this podcast. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple... just go to our podcast show page and the follow button will be there at the top.
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Chapter 2: What are forever chemicals and why are they important?
Billy, this case is absolutely massive. In fact, you mentioned the biggest ever against a company in Australia. Isn't that crazy? This is the largest court case the Australian government has ever launched. Yeah, so obviously they think it's a pretty big deal. And it's about forever chemicals, which you mentioned in your intro. They're also called PFAS or P-F-A-S? PFAS. PFAS, okay.
I hear this word all the time. I see PFAS a lot. I hear about forever chemicals. Maybe a good place for us to start is what are they? So they are human made chemicals and the purpose of them is to make products resistant to heat or to stains or to grease. So they're useful in that specific purpose. But I mean, as this whole podcast is about, they're quite damaging because of that as well.
Now they've been used in a range of household products since the 1950s, which is kind of when they exploded in popularity. And an example is that they're used in nonstick cookware. So that is a big purpose of them. Yes, pans. I've got so many. When I first was looking into this, I thought that it was like microplastics.
I think I thought that we were talking about the same thing and we just did a whole episode on microplastics. Very good one. Don't worry, guys. I've got this. I can explain this because I just did this podcast on microplastics. They're different.
Okay.
They're similar in the sense that they're both human-made and there are concerns about both of them being very harmful to human health and to the environment as well, but they're different. The issue with forever chemicals, like we said, they're also called PFAS, but I'll just keep it simple and call them forever chemicals, is that they don't break down easily in the environment.
Mm-hmm.
and they instead accumulate in the soil and in water and also in human bodies, and they stay there, which is why they are called forever chemicals. Okay, that doesn't sound good. What sort of issues are we talking about health-wise?
So the exact issues is still being investigated, but scientists have linked forever chemical exposure to a range of serious health conditions for humans, so things like liver damage, kidney disease... some cancers as well. There are links between them. But like I said, since the 1950s is when they became widely used in household products.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the $2 billion lawsuit against 3M?
Yeah, so they're saying they have this claim because 3M knew that there was these issues with Forever Chemicals, but they still sold the products to the government anyways?
Exactly. Our position is that 3M withheld a range of information and misrepresented the effects of this substance. This included withholding 3M's own environmental laboratory testing, which showed there were significant adverse environmental effects associated with the use of 3M firefighting foam.
So that was Michelle Rowland, who I just mentioned, the Attorney General, who announced this legal lawsuit last Thursday. Okay, so we know what Forever Chemicals are. We know that there's this lawsuit from the government. We've got this other party involved, which is 3M. What did they say about the lawsuit? Well, they have said that they are going to fight this lawsuit. That sounds about right.
Yeah. They said in a statement to TDA that it had seized sales of the products at issue in Australia around two decades ago. Oh. Yes. Yes. So this isn't a recent thing. It's a decades old thing. I mean, like I said, started in 1950s. I think it was around the 1970s that it really started being used in firefighting foam.
And they are right that in, I think it was early 2000s that they did stop selling it to Australia. But their statement goes on. They said, and this is a direct quote from them. The Department of Defence continued to use PFAS-containing firefighting foams for nearly two decades longer, as noted in a recent Legislative Committee report.
So essentially they're saying that once you knew about the risks, you actually kept using it anyway. So their defence is that the government knew the risks and continued to use that foam long after 3M stopped developing it. Yes, that's their argument. But the government's argument is there was a long period of time where you did know the risks and you didn't tell us about it.
Okay, this is so messy and we're going to get more into it in just a second. But first, here's a quick word from our sponsor.
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Chapter 4: How do forever chemicals affect human health?
I don't want to be alarmist here. Again, it has started to be phased out. They're still determining the exact health risks associated with the levels of PFAS, but for you and I, it should be quite low how much we have in our body. Okay. You're telling me to chill out for now? I think so. I think so. Well, maybe we'll circle back when this case is done.
It's obviously going to be one that's going to get a lot of attention. Like we said, landmark, record-breaking amount of money being claimed here and a lot of finger-pointing as well. I actually have two more things that I forgot to mention. Okay, please. That I wrote down for myself that I had to mention.
The first one is that the government actually just tightened its safe drinking water guidelines in June of last year to significantly lower what's considered a safe level of PFAS in water. So again, it is currently being tightened. Like we're right in the middle of the government really looking into this.
Okay.
The second thing that I wrote down to mention is that in July last year, the government also banned the manufacture, import, export and use of three specific PFAS chemicals. It's a group of chemicals, so they've only banned three specific types of it. But I thought that was also worth mentioning. There are also exemptions in place for different things, but worth mentioning. Yes.
It sounds like it's something they're really cracking down on, hey? Yes. Yeah. Billie, thank you so much for taking us through that. Thank you. I don't have a tidbit. I do. It's time for tidbit. You are always on top of bringing the tidbits to the podcast. I love it. It's my favourite part of the podcast. I always hang around when I'm not hosting to see what the tidbit's going to be.
Do you?
I do. Oh, I love that. So this one is to do with the World Cup. I know you're thinking, Elliot, you're not our sports journalist and you never pitch any sports stories. But this one crosses over into my field of interest a little bit. The soccer slash football, don't know what it is, World Cup. Yeah, I think people overseas would kill you if you said soccer.
It is football most places in the world. But because we have football, we're going to call it soccer. Okay, amazing. The Men's Football World Cup that is happening in end of June slash July. Yeah, everyone should stream the theme song with Shakira. It's really good. Anyways, on Thursday last week, there's this Argentinian soccer influencer.
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Chapter 5: What environmental issues are linked to forever chemicals?
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