Federal Labor vows Senate probe into Bellarine cancer cases
Labor has vowed to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the high incidence of cancer on the Bellarine Peninsula, in the hotly contested seat of Corangamite.
The Age first reported the concerns in late December after families of young adults from the area who died of cancers including leukemia, lymphoma and brain cancer raised the alarm.
Many of the cases occurred among young adults who grew up in the Barwon Heads area, and others who attended Bellarine Secondary College in the nearby town of Drysdale.
Concerns have been expressed about the use of organochlorine pesticides in the area until they were banned in the 1980s.
Gordon Legal is investigating the cancer deaths of at least two former Bellarine Secondary College students with a view to a test case for a potential class action.
On Thursday morning Labor announced that it would work with health experts, community advocates, cancer patients and their families to develop the terms of reference for the inquiry, which would begin by the end of this year.
“A lot of people in the community have raised concerns with me about this issue. There are a lot of questions about why many of our young people got very sick,” Corangamite Labor candidate Libby Coker said.
“Labor will do everything we can to get answers for local families.”
Shadow Health Minister Catherine King said Labor would work with the state government and health experts “to investigate this matter and to understand exactly any connection between illness and organochlorine pesticides".
Corangamite Liberal MP Sarah Henderson, who is fighting to retain the marginal seat, recently called for a state judicial inquiry into the incidence of cancer, but in relation to concerns about mosquito spraying in the area raised in recent months by several residents.
The state government has reviewed local health data and said it found no evidence of a higher rate of cancer in the Bellarine Peninsula.
More to come