PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Ms PENFOLD (Lyne) (11:21): I rise to speak about why a national extended producer responsibility scheme for plastics matters not just for our environment but for Australian manufacturing, regional jobs and our circular economy. Australia is one of the highest producers of single-use plastic waste per capita in the world. Every year we use around 1.3 million tonnes of plastic packaging, yet around one million tonnes still ends up in landfill.
We know, more than ever, about the environmental impacts of plastic waste and the growing concerns surrounding microplastics and human health. This debate should not be reduced to a simple environmental argument. This is also an economic issue.
It's also about stimulating modern manufacturing in this country. For me, it's also a regional development issue and a question of accountability. If a company profits from placing plastic packaging on the market, it should bear responsibility for what happens to that packaging at the end of its life.
That is the principle behind extended producer responsibility. Done properly, an EPR scheme creates incentives to reduce waste, improve product design, increase recycled content and support the infrastructure needed to recover and recycle materials. Most importantly, it helps ensure that the costs are borne by producers rather than simply being shifted onto councils, ratepayers and taxpayers.
That is why I support the introduction of an EPR scheme for plastics. In my own electorate I have the iQRenew facility, which is Australia's first purpose-built soft plastics processing facility, at Kundle Kundle. I visited this amazing facility.
The facility is an example of regional Australian businesses stepping up to help solve Australia's soft plastics problem. It takes household soft plastics, such as bread bags, wrappers and packaging films, and transforms them into high-quality recycled resin pellets that can be used again by Australian manufacturers. These are not products sitting in a warehouse waiting for use.
Those recycled pellets are already being turned into practical products, including buckets, storage totes, packaging products, agricultural products, irrigation components, industrial liners, ground stabilisation grids, pallets, bollards, construction products, recycling caddies and other consumer goods. The facility has already processed soft plastics from the failed RED scheme from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the ACT.
In other words, my electorate is already doing the hard work. But the Kundle Kundle facility's future is uncertain without an EPR scheme. Despite years of discussion, reports, consultations and parliamentary inquiries, there remains a deafening silence from Minister Watt on when Australia will finally implement a national extended producer responsibility scheme for plastics.
There's been consultation and inquiry, yet businesses still do not know what the future rules of the game will be. At some point, consultation must give way to decisions. The same frustration exists with iQRenew's rail to Kundle circular economy precinct.
This proposal would create a nationally significant circular economy hub, centred on the Kundle Kundle site and capable of servicing soft plastics as well as food and organics waste from up to 80 regional councils across New South Wales. The Kundle Kundle site has been home to heavy machinery and rail manufacturing for decades and has a spur line off the main north-south rail freight corridor just north of Taree.
It has the potential to create more than 300 jobs and establish the Mid North Coast as a national leader in recycling and circular manufacturing. The application for Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program funding was lodged in February last year. More than a year later, despite repeated requests and representations, iQRenew and Regional Development Australia are still waiting to hear whether the project will receive support.
The irony is hard to miss. The Albanese government speaks often about sustainability and the circular economy, yet one minister remains silent on an EPR scheme while another cannot provide an answer on a project that would help deliver exactly what the government claims it wants to achieve. The lesson from Kundle Kundle is simple.
Australia does not have a recycling capability problem; Australia has a policy certainty problem. We have businesses prepared to invest, we have regional communities prepared to host facilities, and we have the technology and the workforce. What we lack is the right signals that government action can provide.
A national EPR scheme would provide the certainty industry has been calling for. It would support domestic recycling capacity, encourage investment and ensure facilities like iQRenew can continue turning what was once landfill into valuable products. (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Mascarenhas ): The time allotted for this debate has expired.
The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.