Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contributions in the debate on these bills: the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020, the Recycling and Waste Reduction (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2020, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Charges (General) Bill 2020, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Charges (Customs) Bill 2020 and the Recycling and Waste Reduction Charges (Excise) Bill 2020. They represent, across the bills, a package of legislation that implements the commitment agreed by all Australian governments, working cooperatively at a state, territory and Commonwealth level, to ban unprocessed waste exports, to strengthen existing product stewardship legislation and to provide a national legislative framework for recycling and waste reduction, now and into the future. This will enable Australia to realise the full economic value of waste and to maximise the ability of our waste management and recycling sector to recover and remanufacture waste materials.

These bills will see significant and positive benefit through the creation of jobs, growing the Australian economy and, crucially, reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfill. The supporting Recycling Modernisation Fund, announced by our government in July, will see a $1 billion transformation of Australia's domestic waste and recycling facilities, building a sustainable waste and recycling sector to process the waste streams we've been sending offshore. As our Prime Minister has said, it's our waste; it's our responsibility.

These bills introduced by our government seek to turbocharge Australia's approach to product stewardship, to develop a circular economy by encouraging businesses to take greater responsibility to reduce the environmental footprint of products across their life cycle. Our government is taking specific action in relation to plastics waste. Since the waste export ban was agreed, under the leadership of Prime Minister Morrison, exports of plastics waste alone have fallen by around 5,000 tonnes per month. That is the equivalent of the weight of the Royal Australian Navy's two largest ships, each year, being saved in terms of plastics waste exports from Australia. Our government is developing a national plastics plan informed by the ideas and suggestions raised at the first ever National Plastics Summit in March. The plan will include initiatives to reduce plastics pollution by targeting every single stage of the plastics life cycle and will recognise that everyone, including governments, industry and the community, has a vital role to play in managing our plastics waste.

Under the National Product Stewardship Investment Fund, $10.5 million will be provided to support 15 projects to reduce waste and improve recycling. One of these projects, run by the Australian Food and Grocery Council, will recycle and reprocess 190,000 tonnes of soft plastic packaging per year. That's the equivalent of almost 200 billion chocolate wrappers. That's even beyond the capacity of my nine-year-old daughter or her younger sibling! Under the government's $1.1 million funded national consumer education program, the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation will deliver a series of campaigns to improve consumer and household recycling awareness and behaviours to improve the resource recovery outcomes for packaging. The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation are also working to gain government accreditation for a voluntary product stewardship scheme for packaging.

I note that the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee considered the provisions in these bills in detail and recommended they be passed. I thank the committee for their work and their support and their consideration of these important aspects. The committee made three additional recommendations: first, that the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment continue its engagement with state, territory and local governments, as well as with industry, business and environmental stakeholders, in the implementation of these bills, particularly with reference to costs, penalties and the proposed 'naming and shaming' criteria.

I can confirm that the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment will continue to work closely with a broad range of stakeholders to implement each phase of the waste export ban and to further the product stewardship outcomes sought through this legislation. This will include consultation to ensure stakeholders understand the minister's expectations on recommended actions and time frames for products listed on the minister's priority list. Organisations will be given ample opportunity to do the right thing prior to being named and shamed. The department will also provide guidance on potential compliance action and penalties for breaches of the legislation.

As part of the 2020-21 budget handed down in October this year, our government announced that it would defer introducing fees and charges by setting them at zero dollars when the regulation starts. This is to provide relief for businesses dealing with the economic impacts of COVID-19 and to give businesses time to adjust to the new regulations. This will mean that exporters will not have to pay for an assessment of a waste export licence or to make an export declaration for the first 2½ years of the scheme. The department will instead start recovering the costs of administering the regulation from 1 July 2023 and will prepare a cost-recovery implementation statement in 2022. This will allow for meaningful consultation with stakeholders on the proposed approach to cost recovery and the amount of any charges.

We should recognise that our government is proceeding with these very important reforms and measures to better ensure that Australia takes responsibility for its waste in the environment of a global pandemic. Notwithstanding the changes that the world has seen through the course of 2020, we have maintained momentum and commitment to these reforms while recognising, through that Senate committee process and as a result of the advice coming forward, that we do need to be mindful of the costs and impacts on Australian businesses as well. We need to make sure that we get outcomes in waste and recycling but not in a way that is at the expense of Australian business competitiveness and capability. In fact, we need to do so in a way that builds, as our government has sought to, jobs and opportunities for more Australians in the management of waste and recycling.

The second recommendation of the Senate inquiry was that the Commonwealth have a specific focus on achieving alignment of infrastructure, investment and data when working with state, territory and local governments to coordinate the implementation of the bills and broader reform to waste management and recycling. Our government is working closely with states, territories and local governments to implement a program of waste reform measures with a view to aligning infrastructure, investment and data. This includes supporting consistency around single-use plastic bans and delivering agreed national data and reporting improvements.

Our $190 million Recycling Modernisation Fund will leverage some $600 million of co-investment from state and territory governments and from Australian industry for critical waste infrastructure. I welcome and applaud the drive and cooperation that we are finding from states and territories and from Australian industry to invest in the types of recycling capabilities and plant capacity that are necessary for the vision and reforms we're applying to be able to be delivered and implemented in a timely way and that ensure that we do achieve the optimal outcomes of reduced waste going to landfill, reduced waste going overseas and enhanced recycling in a way that builds long-term profitable, commercially viable industries that reuse those products.

The type of co-investment from the Recycling Modernisation Fund working with state and territory governments and industry will create an estimated 10,000 jobs and divert 10 million tonnes of waste from landfill. This will ensure that Australia has the necessary waste management and recycling capacity in place by 2024, when the full waste export ban comes into effect.

The National Waste Policy Action Plan also features several actions where the Commonwealth will work closely with the state, territory and local governments. These include supporting consistency around single-use plastics bans, delivering agreed national data and reporting improvements, and aligning education efforts around reducing food waste. Many jurisdictions have shown different approaches in leadership when it comes to tackling questions like single-use plastics bans. These initiatives from states and territories are important, but to ensure we get both the optimal environmental outcomes and the most efficient and effective regulatory measures in place that minimise negative impacts on the economy and maximise potential positive impacts on the economy, cooperation and national harmonisation on issues like single-use plastics bans are crucial—as, indeed, is ensuring that the sharing and knowledge that can come from enhanced national data and reporting capabilities will help to drive investment in the right sectors of our recycling industry and will help to ensure that the necessary industry advances are achieved.

The third recommendation that came from the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications investigation of these bills was for the government to expedite consideration of a cost-benefit analysis of large infrastructure projects, including mandatory targets for the use of a percentage of recycled material. The cost-benefit analysis that underpinned the former Council of Australian Governments decision regulation impact statement for the waste export ban assumed $250 million of investments in new technologies and infrastructure and some $100 million to support domestic demand for recycled products. This analysis found that the waste export ban and associated investment in infrastructure is expected to see the Australian economy grow by $3.6 billion in turnover and $1.5 billion in GDP over a 20-year period.

This is a clear demonstration of the type of virtuous cycle that we seek to achieve through these reforms and this investment that has the Australian government taking responsibility and Australians taking responsibility for Australian waste—that we cease the practice of unnecessary export of that waste into our region and pushing those environmental and ecological pressures onto other nations in other locations and instead take back responsibility. In doing so, we seek to embrace the potential that technology provides for us to be able to reuse, recycle and generate enhanced economic outcomes as a result of that. That, of course, is the consistent theme right across our government's environmental policies and approaches—our determination to invest in technology and capability that achieves environmental outcomes in a manner that supports Australian jobs and Australian livelihoods, rather than taxes or takes away from them.

The Commonwealth Procurement Rules, I'm pleased to advise, are being amended to strengthen the requirement to consider environmental sustainability in the use of recycled content when determining value for money in purchasing decisions. In fact, I can advise they have been amended; as finance minister I can recollect publishing those updated Commonwealth Procurement Rules at the end of last week.

I understand that there were four additional recommendations made through that Senate inquiry by the Australian Greens. I note Senator Whish-Wilson has proposed to amend the bills in the Senate to implement these recommendations through amendment sheets 1029, 1043 and 1052. The government does not agree with these recommendations and, as such, does not support the amendments flagged by the Australian Greens. The fourth amendment—that the bill be reviewed five years after its commencement—I'm pleased to inform the Senate, was already implemented through a government amendment to the bill in the House of Representatives.

It's my pleasure to commend these bills to the chamber. These are important reforms that ensure that Australia is well placed in terms of our ability to deliver an enhanced recycling and waste reduction regime and to do it in a way that creates jobs and enhances and delivers on our environmental commitments to the region in which we live.