Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'll warn senators that I might be talking for a while. It doesn't mean I won't call a quorum, so don't count your chickens! I have a number of amendments to move tonight. The government has actually made six or seven minor amendments to the legislation before us tonight after speaking with the Greens—Senator Birmingham touched on it in his speech. Senators are probably aware that it takes some time for these things to come together. We've been having discussions for a number of months with key stakeholders. We circulated our amendments that are before the Senate tonight, I would have thought, nearly two months ago. There have been some minor revisions, and we've made some changes, but we've been very conscious to make sure that everybody has seen these amendments. Two of them are substantive. I thank senators for their time, especially in recent days, going through those substantive amendments with us. We wanted to get that very clear upfront. We've circulated these with plenty of time. I understand that there may be reasons why political parties will vote against the Greens' amendments tonight, but I certainly hope they're not on the back of minor technical details, because we've put an incredible effort into trying to work through this with everyone. I want to acknowledge, again, Minister Trevor Evans in the other place. Thank you for listening to some of our concerns. As I said, there are six or seven amendments that the government has already put in. They were fairly minor, but they were nevertheless important, especially in terms of stakeholders wanting to be more confident that this is going to be a robust piece of legislation.

Minister Birmingham mentioned that the government had consulted very broadly in putting this legislation together. Having been through a separate Senate inquiry, which I talked about in my second reading speech on the Greens' private member's bill which our amendments are based on, I'm very familiar with who all the stakeholders are. May I say that consultation is not the same thing as listening to stakeholders as to what they want. If you'd consulted broadly and you'd listened to key stakeholders, you would be supporting the Greens' amendments and we wouldn't be having a committee stage tonight.

I'd like to very briefly remind the Senate of who those key stakeholders are. They're local governments around the country and local government organisations that support mandatory product stewardship schemes and support banning problematic single-use plastics. There are the environment movement and community groups, like Plastic Free July, and a whole range of groups that also support mandatory schemes and banning single-use plastics. Then, of course, there's the recycling industry, which I mentioned. Recyclers in Australia employ over 60,000 Australians. They have made it very clear in the Senate inquiry, to Senator Birmingham, and in the Senate inquiry into the Greens' private member's bill that they demand mandatory product stewardship schemes. They have been there for the last 30 years and seen the packaging industry consistently fail, under voluntary schemes or coregulatory schemes, to meet their targets. They say, 'If you want us to put money into your recycling funds, if you want us to co-invest, if you want us to upgrade our infrastructure, our technology and our processes, we need the architecture right.'

The fourth stakeholder is the packaging industry. No jellybeans for guessing who doesn't want a mandatory scheme—it's the packaging industry. However, as I mentioned in my second reading speech, those in the industry were very clear that, with the voluntary schemes that this bill enshrines in law—it takes existing ambition and says: 'These are your voluntary schemes. We're going to put them into law'—they're going to meet those voluntary schemes. They're very confident they're going to meet their 2025 targets. The Food and Grocery Council said that. Woolworths said that. Amcor said that. It's been very clear that they're very confident they're going to meet their targets. Senator Birmingham also referenced additional costs. We have to be very careful, in this environment, about imposing costs. Woolworths said black and white in the Senate inquiry that, because they're taking their voluntary scheme so seriously and they're so determined to meet their 2025 targets, there will be no additional cost to them of a mandatory scheme because they have to do the same thing anyway. That comes directly from a company that has consistently opposed any kind of government regulation around plastics. That's what they said in a Senate inquiry. I'm happy to read those things to senators or to the minister if they haven't seen those.

This frames up where we are tonight. If we actually want to take real action on plastic pollution and we want to create real jobs then we need to vote for these amendments. It's very much a half-cocked approach to say, 'We're going to ban the export of problematic wastes like plastics', which puts the onus back on us to deal with them, and then on the other hand say, 'We're not going to put in place the architecture that successfully does that, that builds a circular economy so that everything is designed for its end of life.' The recycling industry are saying, for example: 'We do not have faith or any confidence that the packaging industry will meet their targets. If you want us to invest, if you want Australian jobs and if you want to fix the problem, give us some certainty.' That's what we can do tonight. I seek leave to move together my amendments on single-use plastic, which are on sheet 1030 revised.

Leave granted.

In respect of the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020, I move Greens amendments (1) to (4) on sheet 1030 revised together:

(1) Clause 10, page 7 (line 3) to page 12 (line 4), insert:

plastics exempt act: see section 94M.

prohibited plastic: see section 94L.

(2) Clause 66, page 67 (after line 13), after the paragraph beginning "These requirements might", insert:

As part of the mandatory product stewardship regime, there are specific prohibitions on certain plastics that are to be phased in over time.

(3) Page 100 (after line 16), after Part 5, insert:

Part 5B—Mandatory product stewardship—prohibition of certain plastics

94L Prohibited plastics

(1) On and after 1 January 2022, a product made of, or that contains,plastic is a prohibited plastic if the product:

(a) is a lightweight carrier bag; or

(b) consists of microbeads.

(2) On and after 1 January 2023, a product made of, or that contains,plastic is a prohibited plastic if:

(a) the product is manufactured to be principally used by a person only once before being disposed of; and

(b) the product is one of the following:

(i) a set of connected rings to hold things;

(ii) a cotton bud;

(iii) a stick for balloons;

(iv) a product specified in rules for the purposes of this subparagraph.

(3) On and after 1 January 2023, a product made of, or that contains,non-compostable plastic is a prohibited plastic if:

(a) the product is manufactured to be principally used by a person only once before being disposed of; and

(b) the product is:

(i) a straw or stirrer; or

(ii) cutlery or a kitchen utensil; or

(iii) a plate, bowl or other dish.

(4) On and after 1 January 2023, a product is a prohibited plastic if:

(a) the product is manufactured to be principally used by a person only once before being disposed of; and

(b) the product is:

(i) a food or beverage container made of, or that contains, expanded polystyrene; or

(ii) made of, or that contains, oxo-degradable plastic.

(5) The rules may exempt a product from being a prohibited plastic.

(6) For the purposes of subparagraph (4)(b)(i), container includes (without limitation) any cup, drinkware, pack, carton, box, tin, packet, bag, pouch, tube or other container.

94M Plastics exempt act

(1) An act in relation to a prohibited plastic is a plastics exempt act if:

(a) the prohibited plastic is a straw; and

(b) the act is to supply the straw to a person, or a class of person, who has a disability (within the meaning of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992); and

(c) the disability is such that, a failure to supply the straw, would cause inconvenience for, or potential harm to, the person, or class of person, with the disability.

(2) The rules may provide that a specific act in relation to a prohibited plastic is a plastics exempt act (including by providing that an act is a plastics exempt act if specified conditions are met).

(3) Before the Minister makes rules that provide that a specified act in relation to a prohibited plastic is a plastics exempt act, the Minister must be satisfied of one or more of the following in relation to the act:

(a) the act is necessary to satisfy food safety requirements;

(b) the act is necessary to ensure the access needs of one or more specified persons, or classes of person, are being met;

(c) the act relates to medical purposes, therapeutic purposes or other purposes relating to health;

(d) the act relates to providing or ensuring the security or personal safety of one or more specified persons, or classes of person.

94N Prohibited plastics—constitutional corporations

(1) A person contravenes this subsection if:

(a) the person is a constitutional corporation; and

(b) the person manufactures, imports, distributes or uses a prohibited plastic for commercial purposes; and

(c) the manufacture, importation, distribution or use is not a plastics exempt act.

Fault -based offence

(2) A person commits an offence if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty: 600 penalty units.

Strict liability

(3) A person commits an offence of strict liability if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty: 300 penalty units.

Civil penalty provision

(4) A person is liable to a civil penalty if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Civil penalty: 1,200 penalty units.

94P Prohibited plastics—persons other than constitutional corporations

(1) A person contravenes this subsection if:

(a) the person manufactures, imports, distributes or uses a prohibited plastic; and

(b) the manufacture, importation, distribution or use of the prohibited plastic was:

(i) in the course of, or for the purposes of, constitutional trade and commerce; or

(ii) in a Territory for commercial purposes; or

(iii) on behalf of a constitutional corporation for commercial purposes; or

(iv) for the purposes of supplying goods to a constitutional corporation; and

(c) the manufacture, importation, distribution or use is not a plastics exempt act.

Fault -based offence

(2) A person commits an offence if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years or 120 penalty units, or both.

Strict liability

(3) A person commits an offence of strict liability if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Penalty: 60 penalty units.

Civil penalty provision

(4) A person is liable to a civil penalty if the person contravenes subsection (1).

Civil penalty: 240 penalty units.

(4) Clause 102, page 110 (after line 6), after paragraph (1)(q), insert:

(qe) subsection 94N(3);

(qf) subsection 94P(3);

Let me start by talking to these amendments. I was very pleased with Senator Birmingham's contribution, in which he talked about the need to harmonise—that's a word that has come up consistently in our Senate inquiries—a state based approach to banning single-use plastics. Back in 2017, in a world-first Senate inquiry that a number of us participated in—I was very proud that this Senate looked into the problem of marine plastic pollution—one of the recommendations was to ban certain single-use plastics. Unfortunately the European Parliament beat us. They were the first parliament in the world to look at what they found on their beaches and in their oceans. Their definition of a single-use plastic was something that had a readily available alternative so that it wasn't going to inconvenience customers or businesses. They could determine what those plastic products were—like plastic cutlery, for example—and they could say: 'We don't need that. We are going to ban the sale of it. We are going to ban the production of it. There are better alternatives.' So the European Parliament came up with this legislation that was world-beating. I was quite keen to include some of that in an amendment, but after discussions with Labor we have revised certain aspects of our other amendments to incorporate just the packaging covenant ambition.

To get back to single-use plastics, the European Union have done this, so it's definitely possible. The Prime Minister claims he told the UN he wanted to act on plastic pollution. If he wanted to do one thing in this parliament, just one thing, to stop plastics going into the ocean, he would do what the European Union did—take the 10 most common plastics we find in the ocean that we've already got alternatives for and simply ban them. That would be the most important thing he could do. But that's not on the table. It's not on the cards tonight, except in a Greens amendment. No-one has been able to give me a good reason why, especially, and here's the rub, since the states are already doing it. Recently Queensland banned certain single-use plastics. South Australia led the charge, as they did around container deposit schemes many years ago. Western Australia has just put in place a ban on single-use plastics. Sadly, Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales haven't followed yet but they are very likely to do that.

Whether they're the packaging industry, whether they're the recycling industry or whether they're local government—who, by the way, are also banning single-use plastics in their local jurisdictions—everybody agrees that we need a national scheme. We need harmonisation. I accept it's not going to happen overnight. That's why we have given in these bills, after consultation, plenty of time for this ban to come into place, where we actually harmonise the scheme. It's good for business, it's good for the ocean and it's exactly what the Australian public want, let me tell you. They are ready for a ban on problematic single-use plastics.