Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

This is a rubbish report. It is complete garbage. As a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources, I'm proud to speak on the recently tabled report, From rubbish to resources: building a circular economy. The committee was asked by the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology to inquiry into and report on innovative solutions in Australia's waste management and recycling industries. The focus of the inquiry was on opportunities presented by waste materials, including energy production, innovative recycling approaches and export opportunities. The report makes 24 recommendations. If the Morrison government were to accept them, they would create a pathway to a national circular economy. That would be good for the world; good for the planet; good for the wallet, in fact; good for our native flora and fauna; and good for the environment of our neighbours, where we used to dump our rubbish until very recently.

On average, every Australian generates nearly three tonnes of waste every year. Around 40 per cent of this waste will end up in landfill. For every five items of rubbish that we use for convenience, three will become an inconvenience for somebody else. So only two out of the five things that we use will actually be usefully rendered into something for people down the track. The fact that there is three tonnes of waste every year indicates that we have a waste crisis in Australia. It didn't creep up on us; we've known about it for a while. Sorting our household rubbish into colour coded bins every week just isn't enough. Australians are kidding themselves if they think that it is enough. For urban Australians, there is that smug satisfaction of putting the yellow bin out once a fortnight or once a week, whatever it is. We need to recalibrate that feeling. We can't keep digging holes in the ground and then filling them up with our rubbish because we can't keep shipping our rubbish offshore to make it some other country's problem. That is not only because Malaysia, China and others told the coalition government a little while ago that they wouldn't take Australian rubbish anymore.

The coalition have wasted seven years and, over that seven years, we've had seven years of waste accumulating. It took the ban on imports from China and other countries to get the Morrison government's attention and, finally, they decided to do something to start to address the issue. They tried to put a media spin on the rejection: 'This is an incredible moment. We're having a big plastic summit.' They were turning rejection into a media opportunity. But, basically, the last seven years have been wasted. Remember, that decision to reject Australian rubbish was made back when relations with our major trading partner were only bad, rather than dismal. Currently, they are dismal and heading south.

Australia has less capacity to recycle plastic in 2020 than it had back in 2005. That's a horrible fact. In 2005, we were better placed to recycle plastic than we are today, with all of those innovations in technology. The amount of plastic in the world's oceans is expected to triple by 2040. This is incredibly alarming. It is an issue that should be receiving urgent attention from the Morrison government. We need to change that trajectory. Rather than trying just to manage the media today, we need to change the trajectory. It is crucial and fair that manufacturers and designers of products—and, consequently, the purchasers, who are the consumers—take some responsibility in mitigating the environmental impact of their products. Their manufacturing decisions have a legacy beyond the cash register or the docking bay. Businesses should be seeking to reduce waste in their manufacturing processes and to enable re-use or recycling.

Labor introduced the Product Stewardship Act in 2011. Product stewardship is a critical element of sustainable waste management. Labor took a commitment to introduce a national container deposit scheme to the last election. Sadly, the Morrison government has not made the same commitment. The states and territories have implemented their own container deposit schemes, and I commend the Queensland Palaszczuk government for doing so, because that has changed behaviour in Queensland. National leadership would create a harmonised and coordinated national scheme, and that would bring efficiencies for people who use the end product and better marketing opportunities.

The Morrison government claims it is taking action on waste and recycling. As I said, it was happy to have a big press conference and a plastics summit. But, in what has become a common theme, they're very good with the announcement but no good with the follow-up. Recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Waste Account shows that Australia's waste and recycling performance has worsened, at a time when the Morrison government claims to be showing national and global leadership. As I said, they're there for the presser but missing when it comes to the follow-up. Since 2016, Australia's recycling rate for plastics has dropped from an already unacceptably low 12 per cent to nine per cent—you can see why the Plastics Summit was needed—and total waste has risen from 68 million tonnes per annum to a record 76 million tonnes, a 13 per cent increase. That has occurred on the coalition's watch. Even worse, hazardous waste has climbed by a very concerning 23 per cent. This is on the Morrison government's watch. Personal responsibility used to be a tenet of the Liberal Party, but, for some reason, when it comes to waste, when it comes to plastics, that rule seems to have been jettisoned.

These latest figures make a mockery of the National Waste Policy targets of reducing overall waste by 10 per cent by 2030 and achieving a rate of 80 per cent average resource recovery from all waste streams by 2030. 2030 is not that far away. We need to drastically alter our trajectory. It completely contradicts the government's grandiose announcements, at the Plastics Summit and the like, about taking action on waste and recycling. There's been a lot of chest thumping, but we're not actually doing what we need to be doing. The Morrison government announced its $100 million Recycling Investment Fund back in May 2019, but, of course, has failed to deliver a single dollar from this fund. The government's light-touch approach to reforming Australia's product stewardship framework was another missed opportunity. When leadership was needed, the opportunity was missed.

Obviously, much more needs to be done and it needs to be done now. Recommendation No. 1 in this committee report is:

… that the Commonwealth Government in consultation with state and territory governments—

I understand the role of state and territory governments and local government when it comes to waste, but they need to consult with those other levels of government to—

implement a pathway to a predominantly national circular economy.

This is an important recommendation, and one that I sincerely hope the Morrison government considers acting on urgently.

Australians need to start talking about a circular economy—an economy where materials are used minimally and re-used and recycled to the maximum degree, eventually creating a closed circle. This sustainable approach is not only environmentally responsible but will create resource recovery, manufacturing opportunities and jobs. There is action that can be taken that the Morrison government needs to take right now, until we can process our waste. We need investment in recycling and reprocessing infrastructure—capital investment in terms of some of the machinery needed. Science and engineering will come to the rescue, but we need a bit of a guiding hand from government. We need to support demand for recycled materials, so that there are markets there, and ensure that producers take responsibility for the life-cycle costs of their products, which may entail consumers paying just slightly more for the fact that their product will be dealt with rather than dumped. We need to increase consumer awareness. We need to do better and we need to do it fast.

Pretending that our waste production is not a massive environmental problem is not the answer. Pretending that our waste production is not a massive market failure is not the answer. Pretending that things will instantly change if we ask businesses nicely to change the way they develop their product is not the answer either. Working towards a circular economy will take strong leadership skills. It will mean working with business to create a sustainable, environmentally responsible production line, which will create resource recovery, manufacturing opportunities and jobs.

So we need strong leadership from the Commonwealth government, and then that will flow into state and territory and local government. Businesses need this strong leadership. My community on the south side of Brisbane is ready to do more. It's hard to develop good policy reform on a national scale. It takes leadership at a national level, stepping up and having those uncomfortable conversations. What we're currently seeing is a load of rubbish—complete garbage. Let's see some leadership on this topic from the Morrison government or throw them out and give Australians a chance to do more.

Debate adjourned.

See this speech in context