Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Wallace, it's good to see you in the chair. You're looking very fine in your stewardship over this chamber today. In fact, that's what this legislation is about. It's about stewardship. Of course, I welcome it because I'm a Liberal. One of the reasons that Liberals welcome principles of stewardship is that we understand the responsibility that one generation has to the next, to hand to future generations an economy that is as prosperous if not better than the one we inherited. It's the same with the sense of a united society. That's one of the reasons why we oppose divisive identity politics that seek to divide people and pursue an agenda where people see their differences rather than their points of commonality and common humanity. And, of course, we want to steward the environment for future generations so that they can enjoy the benefits that it provides, the natural beauty with which we are blessed and the resources that it provides for economic opportunity and also the opportunity through technological advancement and economic progress to undo some of the damages of the past. That's ultimately what this legislation is about. What can we as responsible Liberal stewards do to improve the health and welfare of our great nation?

I want to congratulate the assistant minister on this important legislation, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020 package. When I think about the outstanding ministers of the Morrison government and those who've come in full thrust and grabbed the issues head-on and made sure they have progressed reform in a constructive way that improves the health and welfare of our country, I often think of the Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management, the member for Brisbane, who is doing an outstanding job in bringing together this package of legislation and passing it through the parliament, not just because of the substance of the legislation, although that is obviously critical, but because he is building on the good work of the Morrison government and the coalition governments to date and bringing along industry so that we're all part of the solution.

One of the things that always bothers me about our political opponents is that they always seek to divide this country. They always seek to divide between haves and have-nots and young and old and, when it comes to industry, it's always about what punitive measures they can put on them, rather than working with them to be part of the solution and move our great country forward together. The legislation the assistant minister has put before us is focused on bringing everybody forward together and recognising the contribution that industry can make by being part of a sustainable solution. That's critical.

We're all concerned about recycling and waste reduction in this country. We're all mindful, on a day-to-day basis, of what we can do and how, as responsible stewards of the environment, we can reduce our environmental footprint. In fact, for many of us, it goes to the foundation of why we're Liberals. One of the reasons we believe in free markets is that they price out the cost of waste. If you ever want to see environmental degradation and wreckage and a complete disregard for the natural environment and the efficient use of the world's scarce resources, you just need to go and look at economic systems, like socialism, which have no interest in environmental stewardship, because they're rapaciously attacking the environment to try and meet the needs of people today. Liberals see opportunity from waste. They see the opportunity of how it can be harvested and returned to economic benefit and how it can then be used not just to reduce our environmental footprint but to grow the economic pie and improve the welfare of everybody. That goes to the heart of what is included in this legislation, particularly the principle of a circular economy. We can reduce our environmental footprint by reusing precious minerals, metals and products that may have a second life if we can find a way to repurpose the goods for a greater benefit. This is what our constituents and the people of Australia want to see.

One of the things that I see all the time is people asking us what we're doing for the environment. Of course, we're doing many things for the environment, unlike our political opponents, who always want to put the date out further. If you look at their attitude towards climate change, they don't want a target for today or even for a decade's time; they always want to put it further out so that they can't be held accountable, because the positions they take aren't based on practical outcomes but on rhetoric, vanity and virtual signalling. This government is not just addressing climate change by setting targets for today, targets for ten years from now and, ultimately, targets for the future so that we can measure them against benchmarks and outcomes; we're also looking at what we can practically do today to improve the lives of Australians. This has been the core of the focus, particularly for the Prime Minister, who has a particular interest in preventing environmental degradation and stopping the amount of plastics that go into our oceans. You can talk about things in the ethereal, but we're talking about and doing things in the practical, in the here and now.

This package of bills is focused precisely on that. It recognises that we have to limit the amount of waste we produce, that we have to find pathways for recycling and recycling investment in Australia today and that we need to provide the pathways for every Australian, every citizen, to be responsible. That goes back to the heart of the Liberal ideal. We don't want a country run by 600,000 Canberra bureaucrats down; we want a nation built from the foundation of the citizen up, where they have the freedom to take responsibility, where we call them to their sense of responsibility in the best interests of the nation.

When the Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and the Environment, the member for Brisbane, came to the Goldstein electorate late last year, we went to look at the practical steps that the Goldstein community is taking, particularly in the City of Bayside and the City of Glen Eira. They're looking at not just what we can do to reduce people's environmental footprint, which is critically important, like separating out green waste and putting out recycling to make sure it can be repurposed and reused, but they're also increasingly looking towards using food waste to generate energy, as a new energy source, and pathways for collecting compost, to reduce the overall environmental footprint of food waste.

At every point we're looking at what we can practically do and what we can empower citizens and communities to do, not to push discussions off into the distant future, like our political opponents, who seem to believe in the rhetoric of the environment but not in the practice. That's the approach we'll continue to take, because it's practical, it's focused and it's outcomes driven. This allows us to build a sense of confidence amongst the Australian people but also build up the economic opportunities and the industries that can thrive in an environment where we take stewardship and responsibility seriously. I know there are lots of business, in Victoria and across Australia, who see this economic opportunity to reduce our environmental footprint and repurpose our waste. We want to encourage them to provide pathways to purpose and growth.

This is also what I hear from schools when I go and talk to young minds who are interested in the future of the planet they're living on. They do want the big discussions around the global challenges we face, but they also want to know what they can do to help—what can they do on a day-to-day basis and what they can take to their parents and other family members to improve the community they live in now.

That is the basis of the approach that our government is taking, and we welcome it, and this parliament should welcome it because it's the basis on which we can have a sustainable environmental strategy for the future. Working with industry with practical time frames and making sure there's voluntary participation, we can improve the basis of our industry—and of course, where necessary, have punitive measures for those who have done wrong. If we take that approach, we will build the economy we need for the 21st century, because we all know that the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 recession have exposed some of the weaknesses of the 21st century economy. What this government is doing under the leadership of the Prime Minister and under the leadership of the minister for energy in the work that he's doing, and of course with the Minister for the Environment and the Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management, is building the economy for the 21st century: prosperity, responsibility and opportunity for every Australian.

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