PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Ms CHANEY (Curtin) (11:11): I support the motion moved by the member for Mackellar calling on the government to introduce a national mandatory extended producer responsibility scheme for plastic packaging through existing legislation this year. Curtin and Mackellar sit on opposite sides of the continent—one in Perth and one in Sydney—with a whole a country between us, but we have come together because our communities are telling us the same thing; that Australia has a plastics problem, that we've waited far too long to fix it and that they want national action this year.

I want to begin not in this chamber but on a beach in my electorate. A few weeks ago I joined volunteers for a clean-up at beautiful City Beach. In less than two hours we recovered the most plastic we've ever collected in a beach clean-up: 60 plastic bottle-tops, 2.9 kilograms of plastic bottles, 3.6 kilograms of general plastic and nearly 500 cigarette butts—which are also made of plastic and take up to 30 years to break down.

That morning was a small window onto a national problem. Australians are among the highest users of single-use plastic in the world—around 147 kilograms per person every year—and we recycle just 14 per cent of it. The rest goes to landfill; it leeches into our waterways and breaks down into the microplastics now found in our food, in our water and in our bodies.

The data backs up what we saw in the sand. Clean Up Australia's most recent litter report found plastic accounted for 81 per cent of all litter counted across our streets, parks, bushland and waterways. It was the No. 1 litter item in the country.

But that same report tells us something hopeful, because it shows us what works. Beverage containers like cans, bottles and cartons now make up 15 per cent of that litter, and that figure is falling. Why?

Because containers are the one part of our packaging system already covered by a producer responsibility model—container deposit schemes, now operating in every state and territory. We have the proof of concept. We've run the experiment and it works.

So why are we still waiting to apply it to our plastic packaging? Since 1999 Australia has relied on a voluntary, industry-led model for packaging. Of the National Packaging Targets set in 2018, we missed every single one, most strikingly on plastic, where just 20 per cent was recycled or composted against a target of 70 per cent.

Our packaging consumption is projected only to keep going. Meanwhile, the cost of managing that waste falls on households, who pay an estimated $70-$95 a year through their rates and levies, while the producers who put the packaging on the market bear none of the responsibility for it. Good intentions without infrastructure or enforceability are, simply, not enough.

The plan the member for Mackellar and I have developed sets out a practical path: establish a mandatory, national harmonised EPR scheme under the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act, using this parliament has already granted, with binding targets for reduction, reuse, recycling and recycled content, and a producer funded soft-plastics scheme designed from the end market backwards; phase out harmful chemicals through a green, orange and red classification framework; and invest in the research, innovation and education that make the whole system work.

The principle's simple: the polluter pays. Independent analysis finds an EPR scheme would add just 0.1 per cent to product costs, or around 25c a week for a household. EPR is proven, and the support is unprecedented.

Industry and community, local governments and environmental NGOs are all aligned. Now, you can't say this for many of the hard problems that come before this place. We usually have to choose between what's popular, what's workable and what's effective.

Here, for once, all three point in the same direction. And that's precisely why delay is so dangerous. Windows like this do not stay open.

The alignment we have today has taken years to build. If we let this reform slide into another review or another voluntary half-measure, we may miss the window for action. The viability of the recycling industry relies on there being certainty as soon as possible.

We've lined up the ducks, and the government needs to take action this year. I commend the motion to the House.