Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Water. Why is Australia so far behind on our national recycling targets? How is the Albanese Labor government cleaning up the mess it inherited on the environment from those opposite?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hasluck for her question about recycling. I know she is absolutely committed to strengthening recycling in this country, as we all are. It's very true that we inherited ambitious recycling targets from those opposite. We were very happy to sign up to those targets at the time. Sadly, those opposite, in the four years after setting those targets, did nothing to achieve them. In fact, they set a plastic packaging recycling target of 70 per cent by 2025—sounds great, doesn't it? Guess what they got to? Sixteen per cent. It was 16 per cent when they started and it was 16 per cent when they left office four years later. They were addicted to announcements and hopeless at delivery. They promised 100 dams; they delivered two. They promised 22 different energy policies; they didn't land a single one of those. They promised to deliver the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, then they spent nine years sabotaging it. They promised 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water. They delivered two. They promised an anticorruption commission; they spent 1,200 days without delivering it. And they promised a budget surplus and left us with a trillion dollars worth of debt. These promises were not worth the mug they were printed on.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! If the member for Casey interjects one more time, he'll leave the chamber.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In contrast, we are investing $250 million in recycling facilities, including $60 million in particular for soft plastics and other hard-to-recycle plastics. The members for Moreton, Bean, Bruce and Solomon have all been out and had a look at the great new facilities in their electorates. We promised 48 plastics recycling facilities; 11 are already delivered.

It's not just that Recycling Modernisation Fund. It's $100 million in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in new technologies like the enzyme technologies that can recycle plastics infinitely, and the $3 billion in the National Reconstruction Fund. That is $3 billion out of the $15 billion that the Minister for Industry and Science wants to invest in new industries for clean energy, green metals and remanufacturing—reducing waste in the first place and reducing pollution at the same time. We're reforming packaging laws. We've agreed with state environment ministers to reform our packaging laws by 2025. We're regulating in areas like solar panels, mattresses and electronic goods. They knew that these were a problem but did nothing to regulate to fix the problem. We're bringing together the big supermarkets to really deliver on soft plastics recycling—once again, to start the collections. (Time expired)

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I give the call to the Prime Minister.

Honourable members interjecting—

Order! The Prime Minister has the call.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's almost half past three—they're just teasing him! I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.