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

I move:

That this bill be read a second time.

I seek leave to table the explanatory memorandum related to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table the memorandum. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Since the year 2000, the total amount of plastic consumed in Australia has more than doubled, while Australia's plastic recycling rate has stayed the same. By 2050, without ambitious and urgent reform, the amount of plastic consumed in Australia will more than double again.

Based on recent available data covering years 2023-24 published by the Department for Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW), Australia had a total national plastics recovery rate of approximately 14%, with the remaining 86% of plastic waste recorded in this period primarily being sent to landfill. Globally, just 20 companies are the source of more than half of all the single-use plastic items thrown away, while according to the United Nations, plastics generated 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019—that's 3.4 per cent of the world's total emissions. This is also a number that is set to grow considerably as the production of plastics is expected to triple by 2060.

In August 2025, negotiations to strike a high ambition treaty on tackling plastic pollution ground to a halt and ultimately failed, dashing hopes for a binding international agreement to reduce plastic production and its use. It was reported at the time that fossil fuel industry lobbyists outnumbered many national delegations, scientists and Indigenous groups, and their presence created a profound conflict of interest. Many of the countries committed to these negotiations, such as Australia, have long recognised the need to tackle the toxic tide of plastic polluting our oceans and planet, risking human health. The failure of these negotiations was universally blamed on the large oil producing nations, vested interests in the fossil fuel industry, and big producers of plastic, who all lobbied and furiously undermined any binding regulatory precedent that would reduce global plastic production and consumption.

Whilst it was reported at the time that the federal Environment Minister pushed for a legally binding global agreement during these negotiations, it is ironic that at home the Australian Government still doesn't have any mandated or binding regulatory policy frameworks of its own to hold big producers, brands or retailers of plastic responsible for their products across their lifecycle, from design right through to end-of-life. This applies to many problematic waste streams, not just plastic or other packaging.

Australia is not winning the war on waste, and the scourge of plastic continues to pollute our bodies, oceans and our environment. Report after report, including those commissioned by the Albanese Labor government, has outlined the compelling evidence that our current and historic federal policy framework related to plastic and packaging has failed to achieve its objectives. Across the past decade, the Australian Greens have initiated and chaired three Senate inquiries to interrogate these critical matters of public interest. The deep frustration, and at times, justified anger regarding the ongoing lack of progress to regulate the big plastic producers and make them responsible for the mess they make is shared by a breadth of stakeholders across environmental advocacy movements, the recycling and resource recovery sector, concerned communities and members of the public and, now in recent years, even brand and business owners.

Each of these Senate inquiry reports contained a number of recommendations supported by the community, environmental advocates and waste management and recycling peak bodies. These recommendations, many of them recurring across the years, have consistently been ignored by consecutive governments, resulting in our current state of affairs, which sees waste increasing, more packaging being sent to landfill and recycling rates remaining stagnant.

In 2024, during the most recent Greens-led inquiry into the worsening waste crisis, it became apparent that many organisations which have historically been opposed to, or maintained an ambiguous position on, proposals for federal regulation of packaging, such as the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation, and the Australian Food & Grocery Council, which represent many producers, brands and retailers of packaging, have also now shown recent public support for federally mandated rules and regulations. Visy, arguably the most significant national player in packaging manufacturing, gave similar evidence in support of this during the inquiry. These same groups are also rightly asking why, after so many years of delays, reports, forums, consultations and policy progress in other international jurisdictions, is Australia still kicking the can down the road? Why have we not taken the urgent legislative or regulatory action necessary to fix a clearly broken system?

During this recent inquiry, consistent evidence was raised and questions were also asked as to why Australia hasn't moved beyond ineffective voluntary or co-regulated national schemes, to mandatory and government-regulated product stewardship schemes that hold the producers and retailers of waste to account? In other words, why haven't we implemented binding Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for different waste streams? Resistance to regulation from big producers of waste streams such as plastics is the problem, followed by a lack of leadership and culture at a Commonwealth Government level to both own and oversee national schemes, and drive ambitious change. It is telling that respective federal Environment Ministers over recent years have all threatened to step in and regulate different waste streams, particularly the big packaging producers, if industry doesn't get its act together. But the federal Ministers never have, instead handing responsibility to the states to go it alone to clean up different waste streams, it has been too easy, and a total cop out for the federal government.

The Albanese Labor government came to power talking a big game on the circular economy. However, it's now been 4 years since this government came to power and regulation on such a critical waste stream as packaging is still not forthcoming. With this lack of legislative ambition and action, coupled with each passing report, consultation process and obfuscation at Senate Estimates, it's understandable that stakeholders wanting legislative and regulatory intervention to address the packaging crisis—including many in the waste management and resource recovery industry—are feeling frustrated, sceptical and nervous about whether this will ever happen.

The Greens are introducing this bill somewhat reluctantly—but also out of necessity in the absence of Commonwealth Government leadership and action. This Bill, titled the Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme for Packaging (No Time to Waste Bill) 2026, provides for the Government of the Commonwealth to establish a uniform national Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme for packaging no later than 3 months after this Bill receives the Royal Assent. This EPR scheme would place a direct and legally binding obligation on producers, importers or distributors of packaging for the end-of-life management of the packaging they place onto the Australian market. The EPR scheme introduced by this Bill would also see Australia's National Packaging Targets made mandatory and legally binding.

Additional key elements of the EPR scheme established by this Bill would incorporate several product stewardship requirements and objectives, particularly relating to a primary focus on avoidance and reduction in packaging use, particularly single-use plastic packaging, in the first instance, along with strict eco-design standards and minimum recycled content requirements applied to packaging in Australia. These objectives would cumulatively serve to meet the intent of reducing demand for virgin plastic, preventing plastic waste, supporting the economy, increasing recycling and resource recovery rates, as well as reducing emissions and better protecting the Australian environment.

One significant positive and deeply encouraging dynamic that the Greens wish to note as this Bill is introduced, is just how much support there is right now for federal government regulatory or legislative intervention in this space. A 2024 report by the Australia Institute shows that a clear majority of Australians support regulatory and legislative reforms that would reduce plastic waste beyond what currently exists, including; 85% support for legislated plastic waste reduction targets for producers and suppliers, 80% support for laws phasing out the use of single-use plastics, 78% support for banning plastic which cannot be recycled in the kerbside bin, 86% support for laws requiring new plastic products to contain recycled plastic material, and critically in the context of this Bill's introduction, 81% of Australians think that businesses that produce and use plastic packaging are the party most responsible for reducing plastic packaging waste.

The Australian Greens, the Australian public, environmental advocates and the recycling, resource recovery and waste management industry, the last of which employs tens of thousands of Australians, have always supported and urged federal governments to act on mandating product stewardship or EPR schemes for packaging. These long-standing champions of packaging reform have now in recent years been joined by packaging and grocery industry peak bodies and businesses, economists and major brand owners, all joining the chorus calling for urgent and ambitious packaging reform.

Given the consistent commitments made by the Albanese Government that packaging reform would be a major environmental and economic priority of this 48th parliament and indeed the last, the Australian Greens are hopeful the Government, Opposition and crossbench will seize this opportunity for action, and work cooperatively and constructively across the Parliament to secure these long-overdue reforms.

The urgent calls from the community, waste management, resource recovery and Australian businesses are clear. The time for establishing an ambitious, mandatory and nationally uniform EPR scheme for packaging is now.

There is no time to waste.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.