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

I got in early for my speech on this matter of public interest and I have just been subjected to some of the cut and thrust of Australian politics that I heard so much about prior to coming into the Senate. In listening to all that nonsense in the last 35 minutes I can understand why so many Australians have lost faith in politics and parliamentarians.

I would like to talk about an issue of real public importance, something that Australian workers, businesses and voters truly care about—that is, the court decision last Monday, 4 March, in the Federal Court, where Coca-Cola managed to get a container deposit scheme administered by the Northern Territory thrown out. Container deposit schemes have been in place in South Australia since 1975, but most people in this chamber have grown up with container deposit schemes. We are all very familiar with how they work. The debate has been around both inside and outside parliament for the last 20 or so years. I certainly remember collecting Coke cans, bottles and anything that I could trade for money to buy my first bike. The feedback that we have had from people, while going around the country talking about these schemes, is that they are very popular.

South Australian schemes have been in place since 1975. We have seen fantastic results in terms of recycling. Around 85 per cent of all beverage containers sold in South Australia are now recycled. I have recently been to the Northern Territory and had a look at their scheme and how it is administered, as I have also done in South Australia. I certainly enjoyed the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee inquiry we had in South Australia into container deposit schemes last November. I was genuinely shocked and outraged, as were a lot of Australians, when in fact three big corporations—the dirty three: Coca-Cola, Lion Nathan and Schweppes—managed to find a legal loophole to overthrow a scheme that was tidying up the Northern Territory, a scheme that was creating jobs and a scheme that was bringing significant benefits to the community. Why? Coca-Cola have always argued through their front groups, such as the Food and Grocery Council, that these schemes are expensive and inefficient because they impact on their sales and that, somehow or another, a 10c deposit on a can of Coke, for example, will impact on the number of cans of Coke that people buy, although people get that 10c back if they take the can to a depot because it is a refundable deposit.

At the Senate inquiry in South Australia last year there was no evidence at all that Coca-Cola could provide that a container deposit scheme was impacting on their sales, at either a wholesale level or a retail level. Of course, the Food and Grocery Council have talked about this particular concern: that if we had a national scheme or a scheme in the Northern Territory it would impact on the cost of living for families, because they have to pay 10c more for a two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola. I would very much like to quote the excellent article by Professor Tennant-Wood of the University of Canberra in The Conversationthis morning about the court case:

Such concern for struggling families by one of the world’s largest corporate giants was touching, in the same way as a crocodile’s concern for a lone swimmer in a Kakadu waterhole is touching.

The trading revenue of Coca-Cola, one of the biggest corporations in the world, is about $47 billion. Compare that to the Northern Territory, which has a population of 233,000 people and a GDP of around $16 billion per annum. Coca-Cola knows, as do most of us, that a CDL scheme in that state will hardly dent Coca-Cola's profits. So what it is all about?

This court case was designed to fire a shot over the bow of other states, the Senate and the lower house when considering a national container deposit scheme—a national scheme which could increase recycling rates right around this country to over 90 per cent, a scheme that could be implemented through private investment, a scheme that could create thousands of jobs and that could solve an environmental pollution problem. It is a scheme that could create infrastructure for other types of waste processing that we desperately need in Australia and will certainly need in the future, such as e-waste processing, batteries, tyres et cetera. That is exactly what we have seen in South Australia.

So Coca-Cola find a legal loophole, through the Mutual Recognition Act, that somehow or another because beverage containers have a product inside them—the filling—they should not be exempt under the Mutual Recognition Act and therefore it is inequitable in terms of trading. Unfortunately, the Federal Court ruled in their favour. That means that the Northern Territory scheme, which has been up and running for around 12 months, ceases trading in just over a week, on the 18th of this month. This is a scheme that has seen millions of dollars invested in it by a large number of small businesses, including the recyclers of South Australia, who have taken their expertise from 40 years of recycling in South Australia and from investing in and administering that scheme and invested it in in the Northern Territory. In fact, the South Australian government even helped the Northern Territory government write their legislation. Most South Australians I met when I was over there touring the depots and speaking to the public were very proud of their scheme, and they are very proud of the expertise—and the export of the expertise—that those South Australian businesses have. But it is not just the recyclers of South Australia; there are also companies like Envirobank, based out of New South Wales. It was their depot that I visited. I met the workers and saw the infrastructure that was in place. Envirobank is going to cease trading in 10 days time because a large multinational corporation got its way over a state government that should have the right to implement its own recycling scheme—a large corporation that has a much bigger market capitalisation than the GDP of the Northern Territory. This is just the thin edge of the wedge. Coca-Cola has funded legal actions against schemes all over the world, and they are sending a message that other states who try to do this will suffer a similar fate. It is, of course, possible that they would look at opposing even national legislation for a container deposit scheme—which, by the way would have no particular issue with exemption from the Mutual Recognition Act. But, nevertheless, it is providing uncertainty in the face of Australian voters and businesses who would like to see a ubiquitous recycling scheme right across this country.

We have had this dream in the environment movement for a long time, but I am glad to say here today that the scheme is not only working well in South Australia but was significantly increasing recycling rates in the Northern Territory, until Coca-Cola came and stepped all over those communities. It is working very well in Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands, Fiji, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Poland. It is an interesting quirk of fate that the first container deposit scheme was administered in Germany when the Greens ended up getting the balance of power there. A large number of court cases were fought by Coca-Cola to stop that going ahead. They even funded a class action to prevent that scheme from going ahead. Since Germany was the first mover, not only have we had those other nine countries implement the scheme but we know that another six countries are now looking at in Europe. It is also popular in 11 states across the US. It is not just Australia that is looking at a stewardship program that has a track record in increasing recycling rates.

Where I come from in this debate—and my interest in this—is not just that I have the waste portfolio but that I have spent the last 10 years working with the Surfrider Foundation and marine conservation groups cleaning up beaches. It is not just cans or glass bottles getting into waterways or lying by the side of the road that need to be recycled. We need to consider the saving in energy and the saving in emissions—all the good things that we know go with recycling. It is not just the 10c that every kid from the local scouts group collects when they pick up those bottles by the side of the road. Scouts South Australia made $7.8 million last year from running container deposit schemes. It is not just the benefits to the communities. These schemes take litter and pollution out of our waterways, which eventually find their way into the ocean.

I would like to talk about marine plastics. My big concern is with plastics and plastic packaging, and not just beverage containers but plastic packaging right across the spectrum. The flesh-footed shearwater—the local shearwater that we know so well in Tasmania—has been studied by a friend of mine, Dr Jennifer Lavers. She and her colleagues have noticed a 50 per cent decline in populations over the last 35 years on Lord Howe Island, where the majority of their studies are occurring. Twenty million new plastic items are estimated to enter the oceans every day, in terms of rubbish. That is 64 million tonnes of plastic rubbish in the oceans every year. In the last 10 years the world has produced more plastic than in the previous 100 years. One shearwater that Dr Lavers examined had 275 pieces of plastic inside its stomach. A hundred thousand marine animals and nearly a million seabirds are estimated to die every year from ingestion of debris. Two hundred and sixty-five marine species are estimated to be at risk—fish, mussels and algae. In the garbage patch in the Pacific, 14 years of scientific study has revealed that there is 40 times more plastic than plankton in that part of the ocean. They have even found plastic in plankton in Antarctica. It is everywhere.

You can despair when you grapple with the scale of this problem, but there is somewhere where we can start, and we can start by being responsible for the products that we consume. It starts with the consumer, but it also goes to the companies that produce the products. For the life of me—having worked with corporations and in finance and thinking that I have a reasonable understanding of business—I cannot understand why Coca-Cola and Lion Nathan do not get behind this scheme and champion it—champion the fact that they would be the first companies to be environmentally responsible in a product stewardship scheme that we know works. More people would buy their products if they did. I do not give up on hoping that one day they will change their philosophy and ideology in this respect, but in the meantime it is our responsibility to make sure we get a national container deposit scheme in place for the Northern Territory businesses who have had the carpet pulled out from underneath their feet, and all the workers who work in the schemes, and all the people from right across the state who have travelled to the depots; I have seen them lining up for an hour and a half in the dust and the sun with their kids waiting to have their bottles redeemed. This system works and it works really well. We should not let the profits of a large corporation—and that is all it is, returns to shareholders—come between us and a national recycling scheme that works, a national recycling scheme that is popular and that can be made to be highly efficient and can be funded from private investment. That is what we are facing in this country if we are brave enough to implement it.

The opportunity is coming up very shortly, when COAG meets in April. For 10 years this has been going on. For two years now COAG has been deliberating on this. I would strongly urge all political parties in the chamber to put politics aside and come together, get on the horse and ride in to give this to the Australian people and the people of the Northern Territory. This is Coke versus the people of Australia, and it is our role to make sure big corporations do not get their way just because it suits their shareholders. There is a lot more to society than corporate profits. (Time expired)