Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water, Senator Gallagher. Last week the Minister for the Environment and Water, Tania Plibersek MP, stated that Australians were throwing out too many items of clothing and that manufacturers should sign up to a government-backed scheme called Seamless to recycle and not dump used clothes. Clothing can and should be recycled into new clothing and other fibre products.

One Australian company operates an upcycling scheme that has dozens of manufacturers, trade linen suppliers, recycling companies and retailers as members, and has taken 100 tonnes of clothing out of landfill. Minister, why is the government reinventing the wheel, creating its own favoured solution and imposing that, instead of working with the industry to help them upscale their existing solution?