Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020 and associated bills with an immense sense of pride. This bill is pragmatic, practical and what the Australian people want and expect.

Australia generates about 67 million tonnes of waste each year and only 37 million tonnes are recycled—that's about half of our waste that's recycled each year. We can and we should do better. Only 12 per cent of the 103 kilograms of plastic waste generated per person in Australia each year is recycled and this is mostly overseas. This waste problem isn't unique to Australia, but this waste problem is a problem that the world needs to face together for the safety of this planet. A European Union report estimates the production of virgin plastic will account for 20 per cent of global oil consumption and 15 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This is a looming problem that needs to be dealt with now.

Australians rightly assume their council rates, which includes a rubbish collection levy, pays for their waste to be appropriately dealt with by the council and the company who collects their bins every week or fortnight. But in my home state of Victoria, the looming problem of waste and what to do to manage it came to the fore about 18 months ago—that seems like a life time ago now. In a very sudden announcement, almost overnight, residents in 33 local councils across Victoria were told that they would no longer have their allocated recycling collected. This was because of the collapse of a particular recycling company. That, coupled with a series of warehouse fires that were storing rubbish, in particular car tyres, blew the lid on the practices of recycling companies—literally.

Most average Australians dutifully separate their recyclables from their rubbish and compost every week, placing the appropriate waste in the right coloured bins. But what most Australians didn't know—and perhaps they do now—is that there's been a long history of most of our curb side collection being shipped overseas to China for processing. When China made the decision to stop importing waste from the rest of the world, the rubbish collection industry went into freefall. Factories were forced to stockpile, resulting in rubbish of all varieties—recyclable and non-recyclable—ending up in landfill. This was incredibly disappointing, considering the leaps and bounds Australians made in understanding, educating and actioning recycling principles, and consciously making more sustainable choices in their daily lives.

I'm sure I have the support of all members in this House who've visited local schools in their electorates and seen the incredible work that our students do on recycling. It was hard to look these kids in their eyes when this disaster happened. We know these kids care about their planet. We know they're enthusiastic recyclers. We know they care about their future, and so do we. And so began a blame game in Victoria between the industry, the Victorian Labor government, who failed to see the writing on the wall, and councils, who were responsible for handling our local waste.

Well, enough is enough. The Morrison government has decided to step in and take charge. And I want to thank the minister for Brisbane for his passionate leadership in this area as Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management. I call him our waste warrior.

As a nation we have a duty and a responsibility for our own waste. We can't just pass the buck to other countries to deal with. That is why I support the bill with a great deal of pride today. This landmark bill seeks to ensure Australia takes responsibility for its waste and establishes a national industry framework for recycling. The Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill 2020 will work to end the 640,000 tonnes of rubbish—including plastic, paper, glass and tyres—that Australia ships overseas, mainly to China. As Australians, we should all welcome the $190 million dollar commitment for the new Recycling Modernisation Fund announced in the budget recently, plus the $60 million for the National Waste Policy Action Plan that will improve our waste data collection and halve our food waste by 2030. It will also provide the basis for those who design, manufacture and distribute products to take greater responsibility for the impacts of these products on the environment.

As the Prime Minister has said, 'It's our waste; it's our responsibility.' The Australian public expect this and the Australian public deserve this. We are putting this incredibly important issue firmly on the federal government agenda, not leaving it the to states and territories to go it alone. We will work as one across the three levels of government to solve this problem for Australia. The new 2020 national waste policy will work with Australian environment ministers from all states and territories and with the Australian Local Government Association to set a unified direction for fixing our waste crisis now and into the future. This legislation will not only reduce the amount of products that go to landfill but tackle plastic pollution in our waterways and oceans and give Australians confidence that, when they put their recycling bin out, their waste will be collected and recycled properly and responsibly, not simply dumped into landfill.

The Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources, on which I sit proudly, is currently undertaking an inquiry into the Australian waste management and recycling sector, to understand how we can build the sector to meet our country's demands. The Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia, in their submission to the inquiry, highlighted numerous benefits of re-examining our recycling habits and, ultimately, restructuring the framework for dealing with our waste and recyclables. They sum up quite succinctly the benefits of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to remodel waste management across the board.

Firstly, they suggest transforming and modernising Australia's economy to enable it to be more sustainable. We must think of our material management as cyclical, not linear—a holistic approach to managing our natural resources, with strong leadership encouraging rethinking and redesigning that enables greater use. For those of you who are technically orientated—geekish, perhaps—I encourage you to go to the inquiry's website and view some of the amazing submissions about how Australians are now thinking about a cyclical rather than a linear approach to recycling. There are some amazing technologies that have been presented to the inquiry.

Secondly, they suggest the preservation of resources and accelerating the decoupling of economic growth from the use of fossil fuels. This is important, because we need to have a complete shift in our mindset on waste—in fact, not seeing 'waste' as waste at all, but more as a resource that can be used again and again and again. Plastics is a great example. Once processed, it can live lots of different lives in lots of different forms. We've heard about this in the recent submissions to the inquiry into waste and recycling.

Thirdly, there's a focus on the creation of local jobs and the growth of local economies. We are hearing this more and more, particularly from rural and regional electorates, where local communities embrace the opportunity to be waste warriors and to benefit economically from this. It's important to remember that good waste management is not just an environmental problem; it's an economic opportunity to create and rejuvenate the sector. For every 10,000 tonnes of waste recycled, more than nine jobs are created. Our actions under the National Wast Policy Action Plan will create 10,000 new jobs over the next 10 years. That's a 32 per cent increase in jobs in the Australian waste and recycling sector.

Fourthly, the plan stresses the importance of investment in the sector in both infrastructure and operations. With no guarantee that products made from recycled materials will be purchased, invested in or innovated, the industry dries up. I welcome our national government's procurement plan, ensuring that procurement through government sources can invest in this industry. This will ensure that they've got an economic plan ahead. The submission notes we must place greater emphasis on creating end-markets, or demand, for recycled materials, to generate investment in infrastructure and innovation. Investment, innovation and growth in this industry ultimately supports job creation, and this is critical as we cast our minds to our COVID pandemic economic recovery. Fifthly, they state, 'Waste management in the recycling industry ultimately supports the achievement of climate goals.'

Earlier this year the Morrison government released the low-emissions Technology Investment Roadmap, which is a very welcome development as part of our goal to develop a long-term climate strategy that appropriately balances environmental and economic concerns.

It's technology, not taxes, that are key to meeting and beating our international climate change goals. We know how important recycling and waste are to emissions and our emission reduction goals. Innovating in our waste management and recycling industries supports this goal. It's something that the public wants. It's something that the public enthusiastically supports.

Energy from waste is the treatment of residual waste to harness energy from material that would otherwise be landfill. I was pleased to visit recently the ecolawn centre as part of the inquiry into recycling and waste to see some of the wonderful technologies that are being brought online. The energies are created by either thermally processing waste at high temperatures and using heat to make steam or digesting the organic material to produce gas which can be used for fuel, electricity generation or heat. Currently, small- and large-scale anaerobic digestion technology is being developed across Australia and makes a meaningful contribution to resource recovery and renewable energy generation. This is a 'watch this space' area globally, and Australia needs to be in line with the technology development in this area. It's exciting and promising work which should, hopefully, grow to form an important part of the energy mix in Australia.

In conclusion, waste and recycling may not be the sexiest topic under consideration in this place, but its importance both now and into the future cannot be understated.

See this speech in context