Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Science) Share this | Hansard source

It's certainly a great pleasure to rise and speak on this motion moved by the member for Mayo. I thank her for bringing it to the House, because what it celebrates is the great achievement of Labor state governments in South Australia. Indeed, hearing previous speakers talk about this, it's a point of reflection to remember that this scheme was introduced in 1977 by the Dunstan government. Dunstan had previously put it up in 1975, and it was rejected by the then Liberal and Country League in South Australia—they used their majority in the upper house to reject it. This was far-sighted legislation to be introducing in 1975. It was pushed through after the election in 1977, and it became one of the first of its kind in the world; the place it was based on was Oregon, in the United States of America. It was introduced, basically, to curb roadside litter.

It's also worthwhile reflecting that in 2003 another Labor government, the Rann government—and Premier Rann had worked for Premier Dunstan as a press secretary and was a follower and an admirer of Premier Dunstan—extended the legislation by broadening the legislation to incorporate fruit juice, non-carbonated drinks and flavoured milk containers under a litre volume. That's very important because, in South Australia, copious amounts of Farmers Union Iced Coffee is drunk.

Ms Madeleine King interjecting—

I hear my colleague from Western Australia talking in admiration of it! It outsells Coke in South Australia, I think. In 2008, importantly, the scheme was expanded from 5c a container to 10c a container. I heard the previous member talking about collecting cans and bottles. I think most of us in our youth in South Australia might have done that at one time or another, collected the odd bottle or can. Of course, many people do it for beer money—they put them out the back in the shed and what not. In South Australia you quite often see people who are obviously pensioners or who are unemployed doing it. When I am driving around the country areas of my electorate, it's not uncommon to see people going along with a sack, collecting all the beer bottles—mainly beer bottles, I think, but also iced coffee containers—which get thrown out of cars and what not.

One of the things in South Australia that we really have had, particularly in comparison to other places, is we've prevented a lot of litter going into the natural environment because people have been out there collecting these cans and bottles. Sometimes it's been community groups who've benefited from it, sometimes it's just been young people or people who've made a habit of collecting them and not throwing them in the litter, but sometimes it's been something of a social welfare policy too because, of course, the people who collect these cans and bottles can often get enough cash to provide them with a bit of a bonus to get them through one bill or another. So this is a very important bill.

Waste Management Review, on May 17, under the title 'What South Australia can teach us', said:

Now in 2018, the CDL program is still going strong. The return rate on drink containers is reaching 80 per cent. Since 2005, more than six billion containers have been diverted from landfill and returned for recycling.

There's been an enormous dividend over the years, since 1977 onwards, to South Australia. I'd heartily endorse all the state governments who've copied, perhaps belatedly, South Australia's example. It has certainly encouraged Victoria and Tasmania to follow suit. While a nationally consistent scheme would be desirable, my understanding of it is you need the state governments on board to be able to legislate these sorts of things. It is a good example of how incorporating the cost of waste management and the cost of recovery into a manufactured good is good for the environment, good for the economy and good for society.

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