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

Nearly 14 years ago I gave my first senators' statement in this chamber on a matter was near and dear to my heart and one of the key reasons I got into parliament in the first place—the need for institutions like this parliament to act on the growing threat of plastic pollution in our marine environment. My staff did a Hansard search at the time, and we believe I was the first person to raise this issue in this chamber. Reflecting on this 14 years down the track, you could say there's been some success in raising public education and awareness of this threat. We've even had a global plastics treaty, negotiated around the world, to try and solve this problem.

I want to read out a few of the words that I spoke in 2012:

I would like to read you some basic statistics on the amount of plastics in the ocean. The amount of plastic produced from 2000 to 2010 exceeded in those 10 years the amount produced during the entire last century—

the 20th century—

Plastic is the most common type of marine litter found worldwide. An estimated 100,000 marine mammals and up to one million seabirds die every year—

from ingesting plastic. That was 14 years ago—

Up to 80 per cent of plastic in our oceans comes from land based sources. Plastics comprise up to 90 per cent of all floating marine debris.

I then gave another senators' statement on this exact same issue in 2016, when I reflected on a World Economic Forum report that was released titled The new plastics economy: rethinking the future of plastics:

This report produced some stark and stunning research. It estimated that there is approximately 150 million tonnes of plastic in the ocean—

This is in 2016—

If we continue with a business-as-usual scenario—that is, around eight million tonnes of plastic going into the ocean every year—then in 2025 the ocean is expected to contain one tonne of plastic to every three tonnes of fish. And by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish—

That's right; by weight, in just over 20 years time, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

So, how are we going now, in 2026, 14 years down the track? I would like to say that the Senate has taken some action on looking into this issue. In 2015 we had a groundbreaking inquiry, the first of its kind, into plastic pollution. The report was titled Toxic tide: the threat of marine plastic pollution in Australia. The inquiry took significant evidence and laid out not only the scale of the problem but what we needed to do about it as a parliament. Then, in 2017, we had another Senate inquiry, initiated by the Greens. The report was titled Never waste a crisis: the waste and recycling industry in Australia. Then, in 2024-25, going into the last election, we had a third Senate inquiry following on from the previous two, with a report titled No time to waste:waste reduction and recycling policies. It showed that things are getting worse; they're not getting any better. Regardless of the fact that this is now a mainstream issue and that plastics in our ocean are recognised as arguably—maybe apart from climate change—the biggest pollution issue on this planet, things are only getting worse.

Let's start with Australia. Only 20 per cent of plastic packaging is recycled or composted in Australia. This is when we've had an official target—and these are figures from APCO, the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation—of 70 per cent. That has been an official government target for the last six years. Since the year 2000—so this is reflecting the 2024 data—the amount of plastic consumed in Australia has more than doubled. It hasn't reduced. Regardless of all the efforts of all these amazing people around the country, it has doubled. Australia now has a total national plastics recovery rate, which includes recycling and energy recovery, of only 14 per cent. The remaining 86 per cent of plastic goes to landfill and of course leaks into our rivers, our landscapes and our oceans. Plastics and other petrochemicals will become the largest driver of oil demand, accounting for almost 50 per cent of the growth in oil around the world by 2050. That might give you a clue as to why we haven't had any action on the plastics crisis in our oceans—because it's big business for big, dirty fossil fuel companies.

According to the United Nations, plastic generated 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 alone. That's the production of plastic. That is expected to more than double. Just 20 companies around the world are the source of more than half of all the single-use plastic items that we throw away globally. To give you an idea, Exxon-Mobil, even though they've acknowledged that electric vehicles are reducing the use of gasoline, have still said that they plan to increase petrochemical production by 80 per cent by 2050, which will help the industry pump and sell even more oil at midcentury than it does today. Even with the trends towards electric cars, plastic is going to become the sink for global oil and gas exploration through to its production by petrochemical companies.

At the recent plastic treaty negotiations, fossil fuel industry lobbyists outnumbered many national delegations, scientists and indigenous groups. Is it a surprise that that plastic treaty failed after all these years of trying to get a global plastics treaty, when most of the people at these conferences were oil and gas companies fighting rearguard actions to defend their profits? I could go on but, as I stand, with only a few months before I leave this place, the situation is dire.

I want to acknowledge that it's gone beyond being a marine pollution issue. Plastic pollution is very much a health issue. I want to give a shout-out to my friend Josh Murphy, one of the producers of the new documentary on Netflix called Plastic Detoxin fact, to all the crew involved in that. I recommend that everybody watch it. This is a massive human health issue—which, by the way, this Senate is now looking into as well, and I commend that. And I want to give a special mention to a group in Louisiana who are fighting the petrochemical companies, especially Exxon, called RISE St. James. I was followed by them on Instagram last night. The movie outlines the amazing work done by Sharon Lavigne—I'm sorry, Sharon, if I pronounced that wrong with my Australian accent!—and her group to try and take on the massive petrochemical industry and stop the production of more plastics, the burning of more fossil fuels and the human health impacts that are happening.

I also want to reflect on the fact that, nearly a year ago, I was on Lord Howe Island with Dr Jen Lavers and her Adrift Lab science group. I've spoken about her many times in the Senate over the years, and the great work she and her fellow scientists do. In the case of one dead shearwater chick, we took more than 840 pieces of plastic out of this poor bird's stomach. It died from starvation. Most of it was plastic packaging, and that is just the tip of the iceberg—one bird on an isolated island in the Pacific, and it's the same in the Indian Ocean; it's the same everywhere, all around the world. This problem is only getting worse.

That brings me to Australia. At that time, April last year, we'd just had a federal election. I'd been on the island and was stunned by what I saw, but I had hope that a global plastics treaty would go some way to fixing it. That has failed. We also had a new environment minister, Minister Murray Watt, who said that after the federal environment laws had been fixed his next priority would be looking at solutions around plastic packaging—in particular, making big producers of plastic responsible for the product they produce, an extended producer responsibility scheme.

Well, one year later, four years after Labor came to government, even with a supermajority, we've seen nothing: no action at all. That has to change. I have to remain optimistic that we will push through, business as usual, and will finally get the government to do what it's supposed to do, to solve externalities, to solve this massive pollution problem and hold the big producers of plastic pollution to account. Never has there been a better time. The waste reduction industry wants action on holding big plastic producers to account. Many of the packaging companies themselves want governments to step in and mandate rules and regulations around this to give them certainty in the way they operate. For the life of me, I don't know why we don't do it. Everybody seems to want it. This is a historic opportunity. The Green's would work with government to get that done.

But, in the meantime—because I've learned from experience that governments don't do anything on this, and the wheel moves very slowly—I want to announce today that the Greens intention is to introduce a private senators' bill to introduce an extended producer response risk scheme. We did this 2019, and the Liberal government then brought in the Waste Reduction and Recycling Act. We got some action, but it was only voluntary. Now it's time to mandate big business and make them clean up their mess. (Time expired)