Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

This is a significant change and I am grateful to the assistant minister and his staff for the way they engaged on this particular change. Amendment (8) and amendment (9) are related, and they go to the issue of how the minister will consult in preparing the minister's priority list, which is a significant change the government is making with respect to the product stewardship arrangements. While we don't think those changes, on the whole, go far enough or really grasp the nettle, it is important that the minister's priority list arrangements are as strong as they can be, and on that basis we support it. Whereas the draft form of the bill listed a whole series of bodies and sources of advice that the minister may engage with in reaching a decision about what goes on the minister's priority list and what actions and what timetable should apply, we felt that, for the minister's priority list to be in the best form and have the most rigour and effectiveness as one could expect, the minister's consultation with at least each state and territory and any relevant centres of excellence should be mandatory. That is what this change achieves, by shifting from 'may consult' to 'must consult' with respect to each state and territory and any relevant centres of excellence. The reference to any 'relevant centres of excellence' obviously looks to the fact that the government intends to establish the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence, and there has been some information in the public domain about how that will be constituted.

To some degree, you have to see the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence in the context of what preceded it under Labor's form of the product stewardship arrangements, which was the Product Stewardship Advisory Group, an independent statutory body that existed to give advice to the minister and provide that kind of expertise. We don't feel the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence is being established with quite the same standing and independence as the PSAG, but it is good to see this body being formed, and it's absolutely appropriate that the minister, in preparing the priority list, must consult with the new Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence, and on that basis we support the amendment.

See this speech in context