Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. It gives me great pleasure to second this motion from the member for Mayo, and I thank her for bringing on this private member's motion. I agree with it wholeheartedly. I am disappointed that my state of Tasmania does not have a container deposit scheme in place; it is high time that we did. At my party's Tasmanian state conference, held last month in Hobart, the Brighton-Bridgewater Branch, which is in my electorate, proposed that Labor support a CDS in Tasmania. I'm pleased to say the conference unanimously supported that motion. I thank the secretary of the Brighton-Bridgewater Branch, Darren Clark, who works with me in my federal office, for moving the motion. I add my thanks to Mark and Ange, the founders of the Bridgewater/Gagebrook Clean Up Group, who were instrumental in the branch taking up the call.

Mark and Ange have been calling for a CDS in Tasmania for some time. They have won various community awards for their hard work, which involves remediation of foreshores, collecting litter and abandoned trolleys, and reporting the whereabouts of burnt-out stolen cars. Also important in their work is picking up the many, many plastic bottles that are discarded in our waterways. Mark and Ange are two terrific people who are determined to make their home a better place to be, especially for kids. They are on the frontline of keeping our community free of litter, and they have my respect and thanks.

So what is a container deposit scheme? Beverage makers essentially put the price of a can or a bottle of, usually soda, up by a few cents—say, 10 cents—when the empty can or bottle is returned to a collection point, whoever returns it gets that 10 cents back, or they can nominate that it be given to charity. If the person who paid the deposit chucks the container away, then someone else has the opportunity to pick it up and retrieve the deposit. It's polluter pays at its simplest. It is also an example of product stewardship legislation, in which the beverage industry is obliged to take greater responsible for its packaging after it has been sold. It is the beverage suppliers—like Coca-Cola Amatil and Schweppes—that must ensure that a system is in place for the recovery and recycling of their empty beverage containers. Beverage makers moan and whinge about these schemes because it costs a little bit more money to set them up, and they make them put up the headline price of their product. It may well affect their sales to some minor degree, but my response to that is, 'Suck it up, Princess.'

Container deposit schemes were first implemented in South Australia in 1977. Over the decades they have spread to the Northern Territory, in 2012; to New South Wales, in 2017; and to the Australian Capital Territory, in June 2018. Queensland has announced it will pursue a scheme in partnership with New South Wales for implementation by 1 November 2018. Western Australia has also announced plans for a scheme, commencing in early 2020. Attempts to introduce similar legislation in Tasmania and Victoria have, unfortunately, been unsuccessful to date. Victoria did have a similar scheme in place in the eighties, called Cash for Cans, but it was later rescinded.

I grew up in the outer suburbs of Perth, in Western Australia, in the late seventies and the eighties, and well remember picking up old cans of Pinto—now Solo—Passiona and Fanta and taking them to the deli to collect 5c a pop; just enough for a bag of lollies! Scout groups organised collection drives, and it wasn't uncommon to see trolleys filled with cans. It turns out that the deposit scheme back then wasn't legislated, because the cans back then were steel—it was really hard to crush those cans, I tell you!—and it was in the companies' financial interest to have them returned and recycled. The introduction of thin aluminium cans and plastic bottles saw the companies' dedication to recycling evaporate; it was cheaper to replace them than recycle them. It's now up to the government to remind our corporate beverage makers of their responsibility to a clean environment.

We have the people on our side. Surveys consistently show that most Australians support deposit schemes. A national scheme has been proposed many times over the years. Frankly, a national scheme would be best, and that's where this parliament comes in. It really is time for the national parliament to take carriage of this; the state governments are all over the place. It really is time for the national parliament—through COAG, I would suggest—to get on board. It's time for this parliament to show some bottle and back a national container deposit scheme.

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