Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

For the last three years, the government have presided over bushfires, climate change, mass extinction and a major waste crisis without taking meaningful action. Meanwhile, our oceans, our rivers, our lands and our country are being choked with waste. The Greens have been consistent in this parliament about what needs to be done. More importantly, we've been working with grassroots mobs and community groups fighting to end plastic pollution in our oceans, rivers and lands. Senator Ludlam in 2009 introduced a private member's bill for a mandatory cash-for-containers scheme, but those opposite voted it down in 2013. If we had a good and caring government, one that wasn't there for themselves but actually cared for country, then they would have strengthened our response to the waste crisis and addressed how we produce and consume waste, particularly plastics. Every single bit of plastic that anyone has ever used still exists, and it's choking our country.

The government are making a big song and dance about this bill, flashing it around to take some heat off them while they take a chainsaw to our national environment laws, in some instances literally, like the chainsaws that tore through Djab Wurrung country. Do not be fooled. This is the first national waste legislation we have seen in over 10 years. This legislation, if passed, will be a massive missed opportunity, as it is without substantive amendments. It doesn't address plastic packaging. Think about that. The biggest reform in a decade to go through this place about the waste that we create doesn't address plastic packaging, the actual source of the problem and why our rivers and oceans are being choked in the first place. Here we are with a dodgy bill that is all headline and no substance. That's what happens when you have a government that is led by the marketing department. A good and caring government would do something about protecting our oceans and waterways from plastics. In the absence of that government, it's up to the Greens to amend this bill to make the issue of plastic pollution a priority. More needs to be done, and we are here to do it. I urge the government to agree to our amendments, which make sensible improvements to the bills to make a real difference to our oceans, our rivers, our lands and our waters.

First Nations people cared for country, lands and waters because we are connected to them in ways most people could never, ever understand. When this country was colonised its colonisers and settlers came in here thinking that this was their land and that they had nothing to learn from its First Peoples. It's only taken 240 years to trash, burn and desecrate our country. We lived, thrived, survived and sustained for thousands and thousands of generations. The colonisers came and you are all beneficiaries of the stolen wealth of this country, It took only a couple of hundred years for you to destroy it all, and now we've got the climate emergency.

We know a thing or two about managing country and looking after country. You might want to start listening to the First Peoples of the land. We know how to do it. We even have three- and four-year-old kids talking about how we need to reduce plastic. If you go to any kindergarten—in fact, you might want to learn from this—or preschool, you'll find that they're teaching our children how bad plastic straws are. I have my granddaughters FaceTiming me to show me their new recyclable straws and other things they're getting from their kindergartens, because that's where they are getting a real education. Obviously, that wasn't available to our government members at the time when they were at kinder, and that's why plastic is not a big concern for them. Listen to us and learn from us, or go to kindergartens and learn from the kids. Your first step should be agreeing to our amendments to this bill and listening to the three- and four-year-olds, who would also agree, because, if we look after country, country will look after us.