Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank honourable members who have contributed to the debate on the Product Stewardship (Oil) Amendment Bill 2020 and the Excise Tariff Amendment Bill 2020, and I commend the bills to the House.

The Product Stewardship (Oil) Act is a proud environmental legacy of the coalition. It was Australia's first federal product stewardship law, created by the Howard government, and it's served as a successful model for our product stewardship initiatives around Australia since its inception 20 years ago. The scheme achieves significant environmental protection and significant economic outcomes, including productive manufacturing jobs and the creation of valuable new products by way of recovering and recycling the old used waste oil. In fact, the Product Stewardship for Oil Scheme typifies the circular economy in action. Under the scheme, Australia's oil recyclers collect and recycle used waste oil from almost 50,000 businesses and workplaces—places like mechanics, car dealerships, factories, service stations and heavy industry. It's a highly successful program that these days collects and recycles approximately 300 million litres of waste oil every year, and it turns that dirty used oil back into new, high-grade oil based products that can be used a second time in our cars and in other industrial processes.

The scheme has grown to the point where it now supports 11 oil-recycling facilities all around Australia, directly employing about 600 Australians and indirectly supporting thousands more. When we consider how, when we get our car serviced, the oil change produces about four or five litres of dirty used oil and that just one of those litres could contaminate up to a million litres of river water or groundwater, it really reinforces the critical role that this scheme has been playing in protecting our environment and our precious waterways.

Earlier this year some of Australia's oil recycling facilities began to shut down as the pandemic took hold due to the closure of overseas ports where we export a significant proportion of our recycled oil as well as to various issues around storage and the challenges faced by the collectors and their trucking and logistics chain. Our government stepped in quickly to provide approximately $7 million to support this critical sector and our local oil-recycling jobs through our COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Fund. So I'm pleased to see that, so far, we've avoided mass shutdowns of these facilities during the pandemic. I am especially pleased, of course, to see that the dirty oil is still being frequently collected all around Australia and to know that it isn't building up out the back of mechanics and factories, where there could ultimately be a risk of it getting dumped into waterways or the environment. I've been to visit a number of the oil-recycling facilities around Australia, including the biggest in the country, which is at Gladstone, and the one at Narangba just north of Brisbane. The facilities support an interesting and wide variety of jobs, including technical and high-end manufacturing jobs. All of the employers that I've met during those visits are doing fantastic work. They are very passionate about what they are doing and achieving every day when they go to work, as they should be.

Our government has also brought forward our next scheduled review of the oil product stewardship scheme. Hopefully we can compete that review by the end of the year. That way we can ensure that the entire oil-recycling industry here in Australia is on a sustainable long-term footing and can continue to grow and succeed for the next 20 years of its journey. As I mentioned, that's important not only for the sake of the industry and the jobs it supports; it's equally important for the environmental protection that the scheme achieves.

I'd like to thank those opposite, including the shadow assistant minister, for their broadly constructive approach towards these bills and for recognising that legislative reform is required at this time to close a loophole and to ensure that the scheme continues to operate in the way its drafters intended. As outlined in the explanatory memorandum, these bills are intended to address the implications of the recent decision of the Federal Court in Caltex Petroleum v Commissioner of Taxation by amending the definition of oils in the Product Stewardship (Oil) Act to ensure the scheme applies to lubricant oils, fluid oils and other manufactured oils and greases and excludes diesel and other fuels. Similarly, to ensure legislative consistency, we are amending the Excise Tariff Act to narrow the scope of petroleum based oils and synthetic equivalents for which excise duties are imposed for the purpose of the Product Stewardship (Oil) Scheme to exclude diesel and other fuels. These amendments are necessary to ensure consistency with changes to the definition of oils made in the Product Stewardship (Oil) Amendment Bill 2020 and to ensure no excise duty can be imposed on diesel under the scheme. The amendments to the Product Stewardship (Oil) Act will apply to claims for recycled oil sold or consumed from the day of introduction of the Product Stewardship (Oil) Amendment Bill into the House of Representatives, and the amendments to the Excise Tariff Act will similarly apply in relation to goods entered for home consumption from the day the Excise Tariff Amendment Bill is introduced.

I'd like to again thank those members who have contributed to the debate on these bills, and I commend the bills to the House.

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