Toxic ingredients of Painted Apple Moth spray tabled

Mr Speaker, the residents of West Auckland found out on Sunday the ingredients of the spray they have been aerially bombarded with for more than a year.

You would have thought that the public had an absolute right to know what they are being sprayed with, especially since 260 schools and early childcare establishments are located in the spray zone and the exposure levels to the spray now being experienced by West Aucklanders are without precedent anywhere else in the world.

On 13 May next week residents will be exposed to their 20th aerial spray with Foray 48B. But some residents who have the misfortune to live in hotspots have been sprayed double that amount.

But this Government has refused point blank to disclose this information — and instead has put the desire of a multinational corporation to protect the secrecy of its formula ahead of the public's right to know, and ahead of the health needs of the people of Auckland.

So it has fallen to Painted Apple Moth anti-spray campaigners Dr Meriel Watts and Hanna Blackmore to turn themselves into detectives and piece together the ingredients of the spray from papers supplied to them under the Official Information Act.

I would like to table the contents of the inert ingredients of the spray in the House today, and call on the Minister to release the ingredients that have been used since February of this year, when officials say the formula changed in some way.

Looking at the list of ingredients of this toxic product, we now have proof of what West Aucklanders have been saying for months — that the spray contains chemicals that are injurious to health, and which have never been tested for their interaction or for their long term health effects. Nor has the effect of inhaling these chemicals ever been taken into account.

Looking at the ingredients, it is no wonder that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Government have been so obsessive about keeping the spray formula secret.

For while the Minister of Agriculture has persistently tried to reassure the public that the inert ingredients in the spray were all commonplace in food and cosmetics - he failed to mention that they are also common in solvents, shoe polishes and brake fluids.

Propylene glycol is commonly found in brake and hydraulic fluids and in antifreeze formulations, and is also used as a solvent. Its health effects include irritation to the skin, damage to the intestines and depression of the central nervous system especially in children.

Benzoic acid is a highly controversial food preservative that can trigger asthma, and irritation to the skin and eyes.

Hydrochloric acid is used in hair bleaches and as a solvent. Inhalation of the fumes of hydrochloric acid can cause choking and inflammation of the respiratory tract.

It is interesting that the hazard profiles and known side effects of these ingredients correspond almost exactly with the symptoms residents have been reporting. Stomach and respiratory problems, asthma, breathing difficulties, headaches and neurological problems and even more severe symptoms. As an example I would like to read from an email from one of the people who have contacted me about the effects of the spray:

"It starts with a smell and there is a metallic taste on the back of your tongue. Your throat becomes sore then the headaches begin. Your ears begin to ache and so does your body. You've haven't got any energy and all you want to do is sleep.

She goes on to say: "My grandson has been rushed to hospital twice with temperatures of up to 104. He gets ill exactly two days after being sprayed, and he also has more asthma attacks if he's in the area when they spray."

Over 600 people have filed health problems on a community register. And despite the efforts of doctors and authorities to dismiss people's health effects as having nothing to do with the spray so that they are not included in the statistics, several credible studies - such as the one by Auckland University - have confirmed widespread health effects.

Mr Speaker, this Government has an explicit duty under the Health Act to promote the public health of all of its citizens and protect them from exposure to hazards. So if the Government is going to blanket-spray a large section of its population with a toxic spray, it must accept responsibility for fully researching, monitoring and treating the health effects.

It is therefore essential that the Government finally accepts responsibility for the outrage its bureaucrats have perpetrated on the people of Auckland and institutes a genuinely independent inquiry into the health effects of the spray; rather than a Ministry of Health inquiry which appears to have as its major objective to placate and calm the people of West Auckland rather than to get to the truth.