Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I might indicate at the beginning that Senator Whish-Wilson is correct: he has sought to engage, certainly outside the chamber, in relation to his amendments and we thank him for that. It may be that we aren't able to provide support for some of the amendments that have been circulated. But, in relation to the amendments before us now, we will be opposing those amendments. It's true that some single-use plastics are unnecessary and harmful, and they should be designed out and eliminated as soon as possible. As Senator Whish-Wilson indicated, some state and territory governments already have or are planning to take legislative action to do exactly this. It really doesn't make sense for these things to happen one by one without the coordinated support of the federal government. Nonetheless, it's not responsible to try and tackle this issue through an amendment without coordinating the reform process with those states and territories, and also seeking an analysis of the impact of the approach that's selected. It's on those grounds that we are not in a position to support these amendments tonight.

We do call on the Morrison government to stop abrogating what should be the Commonwealth's national leadership role. We should seek to avoid repeating what has happened with container deposit schemes, where there are different schemes and different arrangements across different states and territories. Senator Whish-Wilson referred to harmonisation. The only entity that is possibly capable of doing that is the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth should take that responsibility and commence work with states and territories on this question.