Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection (Beverage Container Deposit and Recovery Scheme) Bill 2010 and to support the call for a national container deposit scheme. The time for this scheme has well and truly come. It is a common-sense proposal that should have been acted on long ago at a national level. Coming from New South Wales, I can certainly share with my colleagues here the passion that so many people in my state feel for this issue. An enormous amount of work has been undertaken to achieve container deposit legislation. I will detail the work of one of my former colleagues in the New South Wales parliament, Ian Cohen, who put enormous effort into this issue. I raise this at the start of my speech because the argument that was given to us time and time again by the New South Wales Labor government was that they could not support what the Greens were doing at a state level because it had to be a national measure. Here we again see a Labor government, this time at the federal level, dragging its feet.

This is really a good idea whose time has come, and it is time that we acted on it. Before going into some detail of the great work being done at a local government level, I want to mention briefly the fine work in South Australia, which has inspired the Northern Territory. This work, however, does not negate the need for national consistency. What is often overlooked is the work that is being done at the local government level and that there is a real role for it in promoting and supporting a national container deposit scheme. As the Australian Greens spokesperson on local government, I am keenly aware that this tier of government has a huge responsibility for waste management—keeping the streets clean and keeping litter out of our waterways and bushlands is the job of councils and shires around the country.

As I said at the start, many people in my home state feel very passionate about the issue. There is a range of reasons people want to do something about litter. Some find it plain ugly; they see it ruins the landscape. There are the issues of pollution and the protection of wildlife. Another big concern is the wasted energy from allowing so many containers to end up in landfill rather than recycling them. These are all good reasons for getting on and dealing with this. They are the reasons that motivate many of our local councillors and local government associations at the state and national levels.

Since at least 1990, the Local Government and Shires Associations has been advocating for container deposit legislation in New South Wales. That is a pretty impressive record and represents a couple of decades of a lot of hard work. There is a great deal of mythology peddled by the beverage industry and a diminishing number of players in the packaging industry—that is, that if we keep concentrating on kerbside collection then the collection rates will magically increase. This simply misses the point. I did want to share with colleagues here today some of the information the Local Government and Shires Associations have on their website. They state:

Generally, councils' response was that increasing tonnages through kerbside would involve considerable cost, and kerbside may be operating at or near capacity (albeit low). In the case of away-from-home, councils generally felt that contamination and apathy issues made this a largely futile pursuit. This leads one inexorably to the conclusion that a deposit/refund system would ensure high return rates from home and away-from home containers, at a minimal cost compared to the huge cost of trying to achieve these return rates through kerbside and coloured public place bins.

That sets out very clearly how local governments understand and are ready to act on an issue that the federal government is failing to move on. So many of our councils have come out very clearly for this legislation. In New South Wales, some of the councils are: Byron, Jerilderie, Blayney, Hornsby, Gosford, Wentworth, Woollahra, Willoughby, Newcastle, Penrith and Lismore. They are doing their bit to advocate for container deposit legislation.

Some councils have been concerned about the CDL scheme would work in tandem with kerbside collections. I do acknowledge that. Although the quote I just read was from the shires' association, I acknowledge that some councils are concerned about it. But the fact is that kerbside and CDL have coexisted in South Australia for many years. That is why my colleague Ian Cohen regularly used the South Australian example to put pressure on the Labor government in New South Wales to get on board and pass the necessary legislation. Kerbside covers a greater range of materials than will come under the container deposit scheme. It is not a problem. This is a furphy that is thrown up by the packaging industry to try to retain the status quo. The focus of kerbside could move towards materials that have higher value. Importantly this scheme keeps unnecessary drink containers out of landfill—and we have a real problem with landfill in NSW.

There will be so many spin-offs, so many benefits, once we get this legislation in place—which will certainly come, sooner or later. But right now we have legislation before this chamber that could move this forward so that we achieve what we have been waiting decades for. Providing incentives for community groups, charities and councils to benefit financially from gathering and returning containers, giving a monetary value to picking up rubbish, and getting young people especially into the habit of not littering, has so many flow-on benefits.

When I have supported the various campaigns in New South Wales on this subject, I have found that it means so much to people. You have old people relaying to you stories of how much it meant to them when they were young and collecting containers and getting some money back. It was often how they were able to get some pocket money to do all sorts of things when times were tough. I find young people are very excited by it because it is a way that they also are able to pick up some money, but they also very much want to clean up their environment. This is an issue that moves people. It is an issue that they want to be involved with. We need to provide those incentives.

As I said, this is really just common sense, but I fear that this government has abandoned common sense here in favour of the technically complex and somewhat dubious approach of a regulatory impact statement which in some instances just turns common sense on its head. Going back to the wide support for it, the polls show that 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the public support a container deposit scheme. That is huge. Again, why don't our governments get behind it? The answer, unfortunately, is in the power of the packaging industry. They give massive donations to political parties—Labor and the coalition. It is not a healthy system that we have here when there is no much public support and the government does not move on it.

I would like to now speak in detail about the work that my former colleague in the New South Wales upper house, Ian Cohen, did on this issue. He worked for many years advocating container deposit legislation, through a private member's bill in the New South Wales upper house and through working with various community groups. In April 2008 he brought the legislation into the upper house. It was called the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery (Container Recovery) Bill—which would have set up a $33 million income stream from the recycling market for the government—and the Beverage Container Tax Bill 2008.

The legislation entered the New South Wales parliament in the same week that figures were released on the National Packaging Covenant, which showed that the self-regulatory regime has been an unequivocal, abject failure. As so often happens when we come to talk about these issues, there is so much evidence out there that the time has come. The Greens New South Wales CDL bill was very timely and it would have provided a comprehensive approach to recycling to help reduce pollution and littering. Mr Cohen spoke about this many times, and I will again come to some more details about this. As many of you know, he is a keen surfer, and one of his big concerns was the littering that is occurring along our coast and our waterways because of the failure of government to deal with litter and, particularly, to introduce container deposit legislation.

So what happened with our legislation? It was voted down on a combined vote of Labor and the coalition. The New South Wales Labor government remained complacent and were willing to rely on the packaging business to continue its failed self-regulation scheme. They opposed the bill and their argument for not voting with the Greens to support what was a very sensible bill—that economics were all there to show the benefits—was that it was up to federal Labor to move so that we had nationally consistent legislation.

Meanwhile, the campaign goes on. I am keen to inform the Senate that there are so many community groups who are just getting on and doing this. I have spoken about the extensive work being undertaken by many local government councils. We are also seeing communities just getting on and doing it. In Marrickville in 2008 the Greens went out and developed their own container deposit refund centre. They set it up in Newtown. They letterboxed and distributed thousands and thousands of leaflets. They offered the public 10c for every recyclable drink container returned. They had huge returns. We had mountains of thousands of bottles and cans, and that 10c for each container was handed out to local residents in the streets of Marrickville and Newtown. Certainly the streets were cleaner while we were able to keep that very creative scheme going.

One of the big reasons that motivated people, Greens members and supporters, to get this scheme going in Marrickville was the issue of the massive energy waste because we do not recycle containers. This is very relevant to aluminium cans. Recycling an aluminium can uses far less energy than mining for bauxite and smelting it to create a new can from scratch. This was something that came up regularly when they were planning the campaign in Marrickville and when people would bring in their containers. People get this. They really understand that it is madness that we are throwing into landfill containers that are in reality packages of energy at the same time as we are recognising that we need to reduce our wasteful habits.

Our aluminium production is incredibly energy intensive. The Australia Institute has done a very important study which again gives great weight to why CDL is needed. Aluminium production uses 15 per cent of the electricity consumed in Australia, and much of that energy comes from burning dirty coal. Every way you look at it, the wasteful setup we have currently of throwing these containers into landfill commits crimes in so many ways. The energy aspect of it is of great concern to people. I congratulate the Greens in Marrickville for the work that they have done on it.

The people of Bundanoon also deserve a mention when discussing container deposit legislation. Through their frustration they got on with their own scheme. In 2009 they banned the sale of bottled water. They recognised that this was not going to have a huge impact on the half-billion-dollar a year bottled water industry. That was obvious, but they were deeply motivated by and very concerned with the huge waste they saw around them. They recognised that by taking this stand, which went around the world—locals were taking phone calls from media outlets in many countries—it could have an impact on consumers' shopping habits. They recognised that was the way they could make a real contribution. The people of Bundanoon will have a place in the history of how we eventually obtain container deposit legislation.

Another aspect of some of the work that has been undertaken in New South Wales and that is relevant here is the work of the Institute for Sustainable Futures. They produced a report for the government which sealed the necessity of container deposit legislation. They set out the economic benefit very clearly. They found that a deposit and refund scheme could save New South Wales alone up to $100 million. The paper was commissioned by the New South Wales government which further underlines how outrageous it is that the government received this clear advice, not just advice on environmental grounds but advice on the economic benefits of such a scheme, and chose to ignore it. The report found that the environmental management principle of extended producer responsibility was the correct strategy to follow in New South Wales. It would deliver good environmental and economic outcomes. The container deposit legislation would be effective and have the majority support of people and local governments who would be responsible for it in New South Wales. We have a report from a reputable institute that brings together all the reasons, and all the reasons for having container deposit legislation are positive, yet the government still does not move on this.

I spoke earlier about how one of the big motivations of many people involved in advocating for container deposit legislation is in regard to cleaning up our coastal areas. This is a message that comes to me loud and strong when I am in areas around the Hunter and Wollongong. They have beautiful beaches and wonderful rivers flowing into those beaches and along the coastal areas, and people are finding the pollution deeply distressing. So many of these containers are washed into the ocean where they break up and, as we know, many species ingest this waste.

Some very alarming studies of this have been done. I came across one that, because I am a keen birdwatcher, interested me. I could not find one of the Southern Hemisphere, but in the North Sea 98 per cent of fulmars, a beautiful seabird, have plastic in their stomachs, which can lead to a loss of physical condition and result in less breeding success for that species. A similar impact is found across so many marine species. Our oceans support an estimated 10 million species. Scientists believe that we have only identified about three per cent of those species. With the pollution that is spreading across our wonderful ocean system, so many of these species are at risk. This is having a huge detrimental effect on the biodiversity of our marine life. This is another reason for container deposit legislation being intro­duced. Our coastal areas are being polluted which, in some areas, turns people off coming as tourists. There are also impacts on our wildlife, on the quality of water for marine industries such as oyster farmers, and the on fishing industry.

For economic and environmental reasons, container deposit legislation should be a top priority of this government. I congratulate Senator Scott Ludlam from the extensive work he has done in this area. We will achieve container deposit legislation, and it should happen through the bill we have before the Senate.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection (Beverage Container Deposit and Recovery Scheme) Bill 2010 and to indicate that the government's position is not to support the legislation. It is not that I am not convinced that Senator Ludlam is very passionate about this issue, because I know he is and I have had a number of discussions with him about the topic. I know he is genuinely concerned with the issue of waste from containers and ways to deal with it. I will come more specifically to his bill and why the government, at this stage, is not indicating support for it.

First, I go back to a comment Senator Rhiannon made on this topic. She referred to the South Australian container deposit legislation. As a senator from South Australia, I am very familiar with that system and how it works. The current system, which the senator is using for comparative purposes, started in 1977. As a very young boy in South Australia I used to go to the football at Unley Oval with my father, who was a supporter of the SANFL Sturt Football Club. Back then—and I am talking now about the 1960s, Senator Rhiannon—we had a system in South Australia of collection and deposit. My father always chastised me because, rather than watching the football and following his team, I would wander around the oval and collect the bottles. I am pretty certain that back then they were Woodruff's bottles, and there was a 5c deposit even back then. Interestingly enough, I ultimately did not follow my father's team. My mother was a West Adelaide supporter, not a Sturt supporter, and she seemed to have greater influence on me, so I was not particularly interested when Sturt were playing.

The point of that little history lesson is that there is a significant difference between the bill from Senator Ludlam and how the system operates in South Australia. The system in South Australia is an industry-run scheme and what is being proposed by Senator Ludlam in this piece of legislation is a government-run scheme. There is quite a fundamental difference, and the Northern Territory legislation, which we have talked about, follows the South Australian pattern.

It is important to say at the outset that the reason we are opposing this legislation is not that we are not concerned about the issue of waste as a government, because we are. It is not because we do not have a plan to progress this issue, because, in fact, we do. As Senator Ludlam well knows, there is a process in place as we speak. It is not as if we have sat on our hands and done nothing about the issue. We have, in fact, progressed the issue and are continuing to progress the issue in what I think is a sensible sort of way.

As Senator Ludlam will know, last year we set up a national Product Stewardship Act for the first time. It was one of those pieces of legislation which ultimately got through this parliament with the support of all parties. The Greens were very helpful, particularly Senator Ludlam, but Senator Birmingham was also very actively involved in the legislation, particularly as it was going through the Senate. We were able to set up a national scheme for product stewardship, and some of the early benefits of that scheme are about to roll out very shortly for the collection of e-waste. I had the good fortune of being up in Bathurst a few weeks ago, and I saw some of what might end up being the way in which the e-waste is rolled out through the council in that town, which I understand is close to being underwater.

So it is not as if the government does not have any runs on the board for this issue, because we do. We have taken the issue of waste very seriously. We have taken it seriously by introducing that product stewardship legislation and, more particularly, we are in the process of rolling out a whole set of schemes which will ensure that we actively deal with this issue of waste. However, there are other processes that we need to go through. I know Senator Ludlum is young and keen and wants to progress this issue—

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I am old.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can assure you that before you are old this legislation and this issue will be progressed, but sometimes it is better to hasten slowly to make sure that things work well. Again, going back to the South Australian example, I am not sure when companies in South Australia first put a deposit on bottles but it was certainly prior to the 1960s, so there has been a long history of experience in South Australia on this issue.

The reality is that South Australia leads the way in so many ways in this country. Lots of things that come out of South Australia end up being national—

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Sturt Football Club, to name one I can think of.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, but I am not sure they have moved nationally. If you had mentioned Port Adelaide, Senator—

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through the chair, Senator Farrell.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I am sorry. If you could please stop these interjections—

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do not encourage them, Senator Farrell.

Senator Back interjecting—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did not hear that one, but I will not ask for it to be repeated. I did have a solution to Tasmania's problem of not having a football team, but that is another issue.

We are serious about this issue, and the way in which we have progressed it as a government is the way it needs to be progressed. If the Greens or the opposition, or any other group, such as local councils, are interested in solving the problem at a national level, short of making the South Australian scheme a national one, then we have to work through the proper processes. There is a bit of history to where we are at the moment. I am not sure if Senator Rhiannon was in the New South Wales parliament when this issue was subject to examination in 2003. The New South Wales parliament investigated the issue of container deposit legislation and came to the conclusion, I think it would be fair to say, that it was generally a positive thing to do. But we are now nine years on, of course, and what we know is that New South Wales have not progressed the issue and there has been nothing done at that state government level. The issue continued to be discussed. Victoria and the ACT, using similar methodology to New South Wales, came to the conclusion that introducing container deposit legislation would actually have a negative impact on kerbside collections. This was an issue Senator Rhiannon referred to, but the evidence of those studies in the ACT and Victoria raised question marks about whether or not this might be counterproductive to the way in which other states had dealt with the issue of kerbside collection. There was a further study in the ACT and it found that kerbside recycling is more cost efficient than container deposit legislation and that the introduction of container deposit legislation could actually increase costs. So, as we can see, the states have done a variety of things.

Given that as a government we have introduced the landmark product stewardship legislation we want to move forward in a consistent way, so COAG has been dealing with the issue. The COAG Standing Council on Environment and Water has been investigating the national options for addressing this issue since 2008 and in 2010 the environment ministers across all jurisdictions introduced a regulatory impact statement. Senator Rhiannon was a little bit dismissive of this process, but we work through all of the proper processes and the way in which this issue is appropriately progressed is through what we call the RIS—regulatory impact statement—process. That is what has been occurring.

There was a Senate inquiry into the bill when it was introduced in the first instance in 2009. Senator Ludlam has been an active advocate for this bill, as have other senators in this place who are now no longer with us—one was Senator Fielding, who was also very keen to progress this particular legislation. But that Senate inquiry found that there was insufficient information to assess whether a national deposit scheme would increase recycling and decrease litter at least cost to the community. The RIS process that we are now going through is designed to provide us with that information.

COAG decided in 1995, as part of an agreement to implement the national competition policy and related reforms, that all national regulatory activity should be subject to the RIS process. That is the requirement under the COAG scheme and that process is now underway. It is a little bit frustrating from the point of view of the government and of the person in the government responsible for this issue to find, when we are asking groups to tell us what they think of the RIS and we are in the consultation process, that we have this bill before the parliament. I would have thought the far more sensible thing to do—and I am not one for giving the Greens advice—would have been to wait until we at least had—

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And wait and wait and wait!

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Patience is a virtue, Senator Ludlam.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Especially in this portfolio!

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are getting there, Senator. We are making progress in lots of areas, as you will see, and we are going to progress the issue of waste collection. As I said, the RIS process is underway; it is out there. All of the interest groups—Senator Rhiannon talked about the councils—have an opportunity to participate in the process and are quite significantly doing so and coming forward with their responses to what has been provided. From a personal and a government point of view, I think it was disappointing that the Boomerang Alliance, one of whose proposals was the subject of examination under the RIS, decided—I think a little peremptorily—to resign and withdraw from the process. I think they would have better served the people they wish to represent by continuing to participate.

In the remaining minutes I have in this debate I would like to talk about the options that the COAG process has considered under the RIS process. Four key options were assessed for their costs and benefits for packaging waste and litter. The two key stakeholders, the Boomerang Alliance and the beverage industry, proposed specific options for the RIS to assess. Option No. 1 does not involve any new regulation. It is a strategy that would coordinate the actions of the jurisdictions and improve the use of the current infrastructure through increased knowledge, education and information sharing between the various interested parties. It seeks to increase recycling and reduce litter with minimal additional resources. The second option involves action under the coregulatory provisions of the Product Stewardship Act 2011. I referred earlier to the fact that we have already started the process of setting up national waste collection schemes under that act and will very shortly be rolling out some new proposals there. The RIS looked at three suboptions under the act, each one building on the other and involving the specification of higher levels of recycling and litter reduction. Like regulations made to establish the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme, regulations under the Product Stewardship Act would have the effects of: identifying liable parties, in this case companies in the packaging supply chain; requiring local parties to join an approved arrangement; and setting outcomes for an approved arrangement relating for example to packaging design, recovery, recycling and litter reduction.

Under the first suboption, option 2A, the current Australian Packaging Covenant would come under the Product Stewardship Act as a co-regulatory arrangement. As you may recall, Mr Deputy President, if you followed closely the debate about the product stewardship legislation, there are three systems under that legislation. I can see from your response there that you are fully on top of the legislation, and you would therefore know that there are three mechanisms under it: voluntary, co-regulatory and mandatory. The option I mentioned, option 2A, slots into the co-regulatory arrangement. The regulations would set outcomes at the level already identified for the Australian Packaging Covenant.

The second suboption, option 2B, is an industry-proposed packaging stewardship scheme. Under this option, in addition to the actions and outcomes from option 2A there would be a focus on key problem areas—in particular, beverage containers—and additional outcomes would be set out in regulation.

The third suboption, option 2C, is called the extended packaging stewardship scheme. This suboption involves a significant increase in the industry commitment relative to options 2A and 2B and would be set in the regulations. This third suboption involves the mandatory advanced disposal fee, whereby the government would place a fee on packaging materials which could be used for a range of actions to encourage the packaging of recycling and the reduction of litter. Importantly, the advanced disposal fee would have an impact on packaging at its source. It would influence both manu­facturers' choices of packaging and the choices of those who specify certain packaging for their products.

The fourth suboption again involves suboptions—in this case, two separate container deposit options. Both involve a 10c-per-container refund; however, they differ in the design and the configurations of the collection infrastructure. Option 4A is the option proposed under the umbrella of the environment group the Boomerang Alliance and is perhaps the option that most closely mirrors what Senator Ludlam is proposing in his bill. Under this option, there would be a diverse range of collection points, such as supercollectors, hubs, collection centres and reverse-vending machines, at which people could redeem their deposits. Option 4B is a hybrid container deposit scheme— (Time expired)

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make some remarks about the Environment Protection (Beverage Container Deposit and Recovery Scheme) Bill 2010, which is a bill proposed by my colleague Senator Ludlam. It proposes a solution to the disposal of the 12 billion beverage containers that Australians use each year. It seeks to practically address the fact that only about half of those beverage containers are recycled and that most of the remainder wind up as either litter or landfill.

Clearly we have a serious problem with landfill and waste in Australia, and drink containers are just one aspect of it. Four billion plastic bags are given out at supermarkets, and barely any of them are recycled. As a Queenslander, I know that many of them end up in our precious marine areas and that lovely little critters such as turtles think that the plastic bags are food and end up dying of starvation because the plastic impedes their digestive tract. So land-source marine debris is another huge problem which we need to deal with.

Four million tonnes of packaging are used and discarded every year. One of my pet hates is when I open a packet of something which has about 10 other packets inside, each wrapped individually in plastic. I think it is a disgusting waste. Australians accumulate 18 million used tyres every year. Four million of them are sent to landfill despite the fact that each tyre contains many recyclable quantities—1½ kilos of steel, half a kilogram of textile and seven kilos of rubber can be reused. But the tyres are not dealt with responsibly; instead, about 60 per cent of them—that is, 11 million of them—are exported to Vietnam and China, where they are recycled, if you can call it that, under appalling labour conditions and with very harmful environmental and public health impacts.

Mobile phones are another nightmare, for more reasons than just wastage. There are 24 million mobile phones in circulation in Australia, and, as of June 2010, about 70 per cent of Australians have one. A lot of them get replaced, obviously, and the turnover time ranges from 18 months to two years. There are about 16 million old handsets in cupboards and drawers in Australian homes, and I confess that I am guilty of having one of them myself. Each of these old handsets contains substances that we could contemplate reusing.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for this debate has expired.