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

I note Senator Whish-Wilson's remarks in relation to the Prime Minister's commitments to leadership in this space and his references to plans versus action. In response to that, I would point out that, at the time the Prime Minister made those remarks, he had a plan to ban the export of waste. Tonight the parliament is considering legislation that gives effect to that plan, and so I would contend that leadership is clearly being displayed in implementing and working towards the plans that our government has developed to be world-leading in terms of restricting the export of waste. I also note that, in this sense, commensurate with our federation and consistent with it, we as a national government have taken leadership in the areas of our obvious responsibility—that is, how we engage with the rest of the world—and we have said very clearly that the exporting of waste is not something that Australia should do. It's inconsistent with the commitments that we think we make to the rest of the world, and particularly to our region, and that's why we as a national government are applying the ban and the commensurate steps to be able to deal with the flow-on impacts of that.

The states and territories historically have had lead responsibility in relation to some of the matters that your amendments touch on, and it is part of the reason why we think that it's appropriate to continue to back and encourage their leadership—to support that, hopefully, to a point of consistency across a large range of areas. It is about supporting their autonomy in a federation and also encouraging that leadership.

The national plastics plan is, as I say, being informed by the ideas and suggestions raised at the National Plastics Summit in March and is now moving into the next stage, which is particularly around cooperation and collaboration with industry and the states and territories. I'm advised that consultation around the draft plan will be able to commence around Q1 next year or thereabouts and that we should be in a strong position to then be able to progress the implementation of that, just as right now we are implementing the waste export ban that we had previously announced.