Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Statute Update (Smaller Government) Bill 2017. Labor will not oppose this bill; however, it would be a mistake for anyone in the chamber to take that as an endorsement of how this government is using this bill to silence independent expert advice to government.

This bill repeals three acts and amends 10 others to abolish seven bodies. They are: the tradespersons' rights committees—ones that I have been familiar with over many years; the Oil Stewardship Advisory Council; the Product Stewardship Advisory Group; the Advisory Group of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority; the Plant Breeder's Rights Advisory Committee; the Development Allowance Authority; and the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee. Some of these bodies are redundant due to other agencies taking on their role, such as the tradespersons' rights committees. Other bodies being abolished administered programs that have now ceased, such as those delivered by the Development Allowance Authority. However, I would like to put on record that Labor does not support the abolition of all of the bodies this bill will formally terminate.

The truth of the matter is that, because of actions already taken by the Abbott-Turnbull government, these bodies exist in name only and have done so now for some time. That's because they've effectively been gutted by this government. This has been achieved over the past few years by not appointing new members when existing terms lapsed, by removing essential funding and staff, and by not referring any meaningful work to them. This is very regrettable. Over the time these bodies have existed, they have played an important role in informing and shaping debate on critical areas of public policy. Sadly, this government has a distinct antipathy to those that provide independent advice to government. Indeed, it's worth noting that the abolition of these bodies was a recommendation of the now notorious National Commission of Audit. That belies the government's real agenda here—driven by ideology, not by the best interests of the Australian people. We shouldn't be too surprised, in any case, as this Prime Minister and his frontbench regularly ignore advice from experts, even experts they themselves have commissioned to complete independent reports. You need only to look at their track record.

Most recently, on an issue of critical national importance—that is, energy—this government has failed to deliver on the key recommendation of the Finkel review: a clean energy target. This is a measure the Finkel review found would drive new investment, bring energy prices down for all Australians and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The bill's abolition of the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee is exemplary of how this government's thoughtless approach is not in the best interests of the Australian community. CAMAC was established by the Hawke Labor government in 1989 to provide independent advice to the Australian government on issues that arise in corporations and financial market law and practice. The members of the committee throughout its history have been appointed in a personal, not representative capacity, and to be eligible have had to satisfy a requirement to have relevant commercial or professional experience. Over the course of its existence CAMAC has produced carefully considered reports on a wide variety of subjects and has been at the forefront of corporate law reform in Australia. Many of the reforms introduced by governments of both persuasions have been informed by CAMAC recommendations.

These reforms have resulted in far-reaching changes for how our financial markets operate. In just the last few years, CAMAC has played a key role in a number of important reforms delivered by governments. One example is the work done by CAMAC on crowdsourcing equity funding. In 2013, whilst in government, Labor commissioned CAMAC to consider the best regulatory framework that would allow for the operation of equity crowdfunding in Australia. The comprehensive report produced by CAMAC was incredibly consequential in forming both Labor's and the government's future positions in the area of policy and ultimately led to the Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding) Bill 2016.

Other areas of policy in which CAMAC has provided advice in recent years include matters relating to tax and corporations law, continuous disclosure, executive remuneration and directors' liability. It is, therefore, disappointing but not wholly surprising to see this government gut it by cutting its funding and staff, not appointing members and transferring its work to Treasury. Unfortunately, we don't see it being able to be revived under its current legislative framework.

Labor will have more to say in the future about how governments can receive independent advice on a financial system and how to ensure experts of the highest calibre can meaningfully contribute to policy development in this space. It's a shame to see what the government has already done to all of these important advisory bodies, but we feel the damage is done, so for that reason we will not oppose this bill.

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

I'm very disappointed that Labor will be supporting the Statute Update (Smaller Government) Bill 2017 tonight and very disappointed that the government is trying to scrap, especially, the product stewardship scheme. Let me tell you why. One of the key reasons I came to parliament—one of the things I campaigned on for years before I came to this place—was trying to solve problems with waste and especially waste that find its way into the ocean, waste that breaks down into millions of pieces, like microplastics, microbeads. That is one of the things that the product stewardship scheme is tasked with looking at. I'm disappointed that Senator Paterson's government has run down CAMAC, the product stewardship scheme and these other organisations to a point where they're essentially ineffective. But they're really, really important.

Product stewardship is an important initiative in the sense that it brings producers of products together, brings retailers together and even brings consumers together. It's actually supposed to be a holistic approach and solution to solving waste problems. Look at a product stewardship scheme that has been relatively successful—say, e-waste; a situation where we've offered a premium or a cash bonus for people who want to actually take in their e-waste because they pay a little bit extra when they buy a product. Sometimes these are called cash-for-products schemes. We've seen them with container deposit schemes. As you know, Acting Deputy President Bernardi, your home state of South Australia is very proud of the recycling refund scheme it has there. It's one of the best schemes in the country, and South Australia has the highest recycling rates in the country.

Let's go back to e-waste; I'll get to other forms of product stewardship schemes. You buy a TV, a video recorder, a DVD player or whatever it happens to be. Video recorders went out probably about 15 years ago—that tells you something about debate late on a very tiring Wednesday night! Nevertheless, you buy through your scheme, and when you take it back you get a refund. What's happened is that the e-waste scheme has actually been too successful. The scheme has been targeted at certain kinds of waste that are well recycled, because they have very valuable inputs to their production. It has exceeded its mandate, so we see the kinds of stuff that we see dumped by the side of the road—old televisions, radios and all those kinds of things. We have in place a scheme that works effectively in making sure not only that items are properly disposed of but that they can be recycled or reprocessed. There is a difference between recycling and reprocessing. Reprocessing is a word that applies to a product that can be used to make the same thing again, whereas with recycling we tend to take products from something and make a totally alternative product. For example, breaking glass and using it to make road base is an example of recycling. Reprocessing is entirely different from recycling. We can take valuable metals out of certain electronic items and reprocess them and make those same items again. This kind of closed-loop producer-responsibility product-stewardship scheme has proven very effective with e-waste.

There have been a couple of disappointments—I'll be honest. That's because of a lack of funding and a lack of leadership. Tyres are a really good example. In my home state of Tasmania we consistently see suspicious fires where tyres that have been stacked up, usually in rural areas, suddenly start burning and produce horrendous environmental externalities. They get investigated—the police say there are suspicious circumstances—but nobody ever seems to be busted.

This week the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee inquiry that I'm chairing is looking at the problem with other forms of waste, after the Four Corners expose recently about the illegal dumping of waste. Why is that occurring? Why are people in New South Wales taking all sorts and forms of waste and dumping them in places like Queensland? Part of it is the difference in levies between the states—it's more profitable to dump it in Queensland—but the other part of it is that we have no recycling schemes in place for a lot of these products. The easiest thing is actually to sell the waste to China, and China recently, of course, as all senators in here would know, has said that it's not going to take products, especially plastics, for much longer.

We're in a bit of a pickle in this country. We've got this massive amount of plastic that we all use—way too much in our modern consumption and the lifestyles we live these days. We're selling a lot of it to China and we're illegally dumping it. A lot of it goes to landfill. What else could we do with it? That is what the environment committee is looking at, but I can tell you that product stewardship schemes are absolutely essential to any solution. The concept behind product stewardship schemes is that producers take responsibility, as well as retailers and consumers. The idea is that the responsibility should be shared amongst the different stakeholders, which is really important when coming to a final solution.

Our lifestyles and our waste are among the more serious environmental problems we face as a country. We're not the only one. Other countries have brought in successful product stewardship schemes. Let's look at Germany. Germany have a scheme in place which is a little bit different to the South Australian scheme. They tend to design products for end of life. So if you buy a bottle of lemonade or fizzy soft drink—it's not good for your health, so I wouldn't recommend it—in Germany, those bottles are used 20 times. They're washed and re-used, and there's a number on them that says how many times they've been re-used. On the 20th time they then go for reprocessing and they actually make them into new bottles at the end of life. They're designed for that. There are certain incentives that the government put in place to actually help those beverage companies to come up with a new kind of product. That's very much part of the ethos of product stewardship schemes—producers and retailers taking responsibility. In Germany, when you go to the supermarket there are reverse vending machines there, or you can actually hand over the bottles at the checkout place and you get a credit on your shopping list. So retailers take responsibility. Guess who else does? The consumer does. The consumer buys the product and then they take it back. So it's all three groups.

There's an example of what we're looking at here in Australia. South Australia's been leading on this for years. The Northern Territory dipped their toe in the pond not too recently. They've had a few, shall we say, teething problems, but nevertheless their scheme is underway for beverage containers. Now we have New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, and hopefully Tasmania and Victoria signing up to a product stewardship scheme—a scheme for bottles and containers, including cardboard containers like those for chocolate milk, which is also something I don't necessarily recommend that you drink or buy. These help with out-of-home litter and help increase recycling rates. South Australia is leading the country, with nearly 85 per cent of all beverage containers recycled or reprocessed. Once again, it relies on a legislated product stewardship scheme.

The reason I'm giving you a bit of a sermon as to the importance of product stewardship schemes is we have a situation here where we have a product stewardship advisory group. I have a list of members here in front of me, and I actually know a couple of them quite well personally, such as Mr Jeff Angel at the Total Environment Centre. He's an environmentalist and conservationist, but he's a lot more than that. He's dedicated his life to solving the problem of waste. In terms of beverage containers, he's actually really close. His group is the Boomerang Alliance, which I used to be part of when I was chair of the Surfrider Foundation in my state and on the national board. He's actually gotten really close to achieving this around the country with a product stewardship scheme. He's done that because he's been part of groups like this. So why are we actually looking at pulling funding for such an important concept at a time when it's absolutely critical and a time when actually we need leadership?

I'll give some examples of other types of waste that are part of the products list, like plastic microbeads. A lot of Australians don't realise that, in their toothpaste, their shampoo and other products they use, companies use plastic as filler. When you brush your teeth and spit down the drain, millions—literally millions in a single mouthful—of microbeads are going into the ocean. That's exactly what we are finding in fish in Sydney Harbour. We are finding microbeads in plankton in the Antarctic. The ocean is full of this stuff. Mr Greg Hunt said that he would introduce a voluntary ban on microbeads, but he then went under a lot of pressure from people involved in the product stewardship scheme, like Mr Jeff Angel, and he then said he would bring in a compulsory ban on these microbeads within 12 months. That's something we've got to hold him to account on. It's an example of something we know is toxic to the environment. We know that it's unnecessary; we don't need plastic in our toothpaste. It's actually been community pressure, community groups and the leadership of the product stewardship schemes that have got us to a point where we are close to banning this toxic plastic product that we just don't need.

There are also batteries. In your home state of South Australia, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi—

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And mine!

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

And yours, Senator Hanson-Young. I visited the recyclers of South Australia—a very profitable group of small businesses, may I say, who make money out of recycling. They've set up these super-depots where you take in your cans and bottles for your refund and they treat you like customers. They say: 'What else have you got that we could recycle? Give us your batteries; give us your e-waste; give us your tyres'—that kind of stuff. Batteries are a perfect example of a product that can be almost completely reprocessed. In other words, they can be reused to make other batteries.

A lot of the photovoltaic systems we use at the moment are fairly new, but we know, given the redundancy and the life span of a lot of these products, that we're going to be facing a situation in five, 10 or 20 years where these systems will be replaced and we're going to need the silicon and other materials in them to be recycled. What a great idea. You buy your photovoltaic system and you may not notice that, when you pay $3,000 or $4,000 for a home system, you pay an extra $100 on the price, and get the 100 bucks back when you take your photovoltaic systems in to be reprocessed or recycled. The retailer plays a role and the producer plays a role, as does the consumer. Once again, it's a classic product stewardship scheme. I already talked about e-waste, which is part of it, and oil in plastic containers.

So there we have some examples of waste schemes that we need governments to play a role in. Governments need to legislate for these things, they need an advisory committee and, I would say, they need a leadership group to make sure that this happens. That's why I'm so disappointed that we're looking at scrapping the product stewardship scheme, because, of those waste varieties that I mention here, only e-waste has been properly designed, legislated and made mandatory, and it's been highly successful. The other schemes have suffered from a lack of leadership, a lack of resources and funding, a lack of research and, seriously, a lack of commitment. We're close to getting state based schemes for bottles and cans. That is really important to me, because CSIRO did the world's first study of plastics on beaches around the entire country. They did transects at every beach. It would have been a great job; it took them two years. They went to every beach around the country and did transects and collected plastic waste. They found that, by volume, more than half the waste on our beaches around the country comes from plastic bottles. Plastic bottles float, especially when they've got their caps on. Senator Moore sat in on the inquiry. She's been a champion of this issue as well. It's low-hanging fruit: we can remove those bottles from the product waste scheme by making them valuable. I know Senator Paterson understands economics—as I think other senators in here do as well—and something's not waste, rubbish or litter anymore if you put a value on it. If you put a value on something, it's worth something. It may not be worth the utility that I have to pick it up, but someone out there—a scouts group or a homeless person, as often happens to be the case in South Australia, or other groups of people—will find utility in picking up this rubbish and taking it to be recycled.

These schemes work really well by using a simple market based price mechanism, and we know that's why South Australia is so successful, because it can appeal to every kid, as was the case when I was growing up. Every time you saw a bottle or can by the side of the road, it was like seeing a Willy Wonka chocolate bar gold wrapper because it meant 10c. Back then it was only 5c, but you only needed two to buy yourself a 'freezer', as we called them back then. I don't know if anyone remembers freezers? They were 12c and they were like ice creams. Or you could buy a Red Skin or a raspberry Split—do you remember? Maybe Senator Abetz would remember raspberry Splits. You used to go to the beach, Senator Abetz—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President. These things were all able to be bought by collecting a few bottles and cans that some yobbo had thrown out their window. You could take them in and get them recycled. The system works really well.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson, I'm going to interrupt you because there is a matter of business that we need to conclude before the adjournment debate proceeds. You'll be able to continue your remarks when the debate resumes.

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

I'm very glad about that.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As are we.

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

As I'm sure you all are!