Tuesday, 13 August 2019

Bills

Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Ms RYAN (Euroa) (14:50): I am delighted to rise today on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019. The function of this bill is to introduce a ban on lightweight plastic shopping bags. I think it is interesting to note that in doing this we are actually following a number of other jurisdictions and other countries around the world. In fact Bangladesh was the first country to actually introduce a ban on plastic shopping bags, back in 2002, so considering that we are now—

Mr R Smith interjected.

Ms RYAN: The member for Warrandyte says we take our environmental cues from Bangladesh.

I think it does show that we are actually perhaps quite slow in introducing this. Obviously we have a slightly better—perhaps only slightly at the moment—waste system than Bangladesh, who obviously had a very real need to implement such a ban 17 years ago, but that has been followed by a number of other jurisdictions like China, Israel, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea, among others.

I think overwhelmingly people see the decision to ban single-use plastic bags as a fairly commonsense kind of decision. That is certainly the feedback I get from around my own electorate, and I think there is a real concern about passing a problem on to future generations if we do not actually act to reduce the amount of waste within the environment and that very consumer-driven kind of attitude of using something once and then throwing it out.

I was interested to note that through the public consultation process there were some 8000 submissions received, I believe, and I am always a bit wary about statistics because I think there are particular interest groups who are always very active perhaps in making submissions around a particular issue, but overwhelmingly the feedback out of that consultation was that the Victorian public supported a ban on single-use plastic bags. I think 96 per cent of respondents said that they would like to see single-use plastic bags banned, 3 per cent were against it and 1 per cent said that they did not know.

A lot of the common reasons that people gave were harm to the environment, low rates of re-use and recycling, and also the fact that alternatives are readily available. I know a lot of members of Parliament have probably taken the opportunity to distribute their own recyclable bags as a consequence of this ban coming into place. I think many retailers are also quite supportive, but they were very specific about the need for public education, a transition period to be put in place and the availability of having alternatives available at a reasonable cost.

So I think since the major retailers in particular have taken the step of eliminating plastic bags in their own stores, Coles and Woolworths being the obvious ones, we have witnessed quite a change in behaviour. I find myself I still often forget when I go to the supermarket to take my recyclable bags, and there were a few grumbles at the start when those major retailers decided to eliminate them, but that behaviour change has taken place over the last six months or so, and I think that even sceptics of the scheme would now say that perhaps it is a good thing.

I am very proud of the fact that the Strathbogie Youth Parliament team in this year’s Youth Parliament in fact successfully passed a bill to ban single-use plastic bags, and their proposal was that the government implement a single-use plastic bag commission and that the government put in place a recycling initiative that would see excess plastic bags already being used being put into road bitumen. I think it shows that particularly younger generations are very active about this, and they want the government to move and to do something about it. That team comprised of Zachary St Pierre, Benjamin Lewis, Malachi Wild, Jade Donnison, Lachlan Matthews-Gunn and Dylan Chambers, and I particularly congratulate them for their leadership in our local community in putting forward that idea and I think representing the view of their generation.

In a broader sense I do have to say that I have some concern about the environment minister’s ability to implement some of these changes. I think we have seen a number of disasters on her watch, the Solar Homes package being one such issue, which of course is prominent at the moment. We saw in the most recent ballot allocation for rebates for the Solar Homes program that they were chewed up in just 90 minutes, and then it closed. We have now got companies facing huge job losses and huge peaks and troughs in work that they cannot deal with. Locally I have had a number of those companies come to me expressing their very real concern about the failures and the botched rollout of that program. I think we all acknowledge that solar is a good thing, but the government has well and truly stuffed up the implementation of that program.

Unfortunately the difficulties the minister has had there have also rolled over into the recycling space, which is very pertinent to this bill. We have now got councils sending their recycling to landfill because they have got nowhere else to put it. I suppose in the context of this bill, on one hand the Parliament is doing something good in seeking to ban single-use plastic bags, but that is a drop in the ocean when our recycling system in this state is in such a dire place at the moment because of inaction from the government and a lack of leadership. That is really what we are seeing when we have got councils begging for the state government to show leadership and show action in this space, and all we get is another bin. We know that the government is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in the Sustainability Fund which it is not investing for the purposes for which it was collected. As a consequence we now have a serious crisis, and I do think that Victorians feel quite betrayed by what is happening in the recycling space at the moment.

I was certainly shocked to discover that we were sending all of our recycling offshore, and I think it reflects very poorly on us as a society and as a state that we would simply shift our problem off to other, in many cases, poorer countries to deal with the problems of a First World country. I certainly welcome the fact that the Prime Minister is taking a very active role in endeavouring to provide solutions there, but I do think that it is a real problem that the current government has not even bothered to produce or develop a waste management policy. I think it is arrogant in the extreme to see the minister turn around and blame those recycling companies like SKM who have folded, when the reality is that she has shown a real lack of leadership.

In my own community, Strathbogie and Mitchell do not use SKM. They use another company, Visy, but there is a flow-on impact for them if this issue does not get sorted out, and it is possible that we will feel the impacts of this statewide crisis in my own community.

The other thing I would say in the short time I have remaining is that there are innovative ideas out there which I think that the government has ignored. I know in my own patch I met with somebody just the other day who is quite interested in building a plastic waste-to-fuel project around Nagambie, and he has had no engagement from the government. We are not short of ideas and we are not short on innovation in this state. Innovation is something that traditionally we have prided ourselves on, but the government is not backing these ideas to help turn them into a commercial reality to help ensure that we reduce the amount of waste that we are sending to landfill. The project that is proposed around Nagambie would help eliminate end-of-life plastic and put it back into fuel.

Ms HORNE (Williamstown—Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Public Transport) (15:00): I am pleased to rise today to speak on this bill, and I congratulate the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change on this important legislation that fulfils an election commitment of this government to ban all lightweight single-use plastic bags in Victoria, a ban that we are putting in place by the end of 2019.

We are doing this by amending the Environment Protection Act 1970 and regulations under the Environment Protection Act 2017 to prevent retailers from supplying shoppers with lightweight plastic bags, and this includes biodegradable, degradable and compostable plastic bags. We are also stopping confusion about what might be an okay plastic bag and what is not by prohibiting retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers from giving shoppers misleading information about the composition of a banned plastic bag or whether a bag is banned, and to ensure compliance we are strengthening the capacity of authorised officers to enforce the ban by giving them better powers of entry and inspection of premises.

I am very proud to be a member of a government that not only says it cares about the environment but is prepared to tackle such an all pervasive problem, too often viewed as intractable, of single-use plastic items that, once discarded, have a detrimental impact on our environment. Only a Labor government has the will to take on hard problems, both social and environmental, that when solved make a huge difference to our community and people’s lives.

So why ban single-use plastic bags? Well, the statistics on plastic bags are staggering, with about 1.6 billion lightweight plastic shopping bags and 133 million thick plastic bags used in Victoria each year. Whilst Victorians are good at reusing plastic bags, we also know that re-used plastic bags eventually end up as landfill, often trapped in vegetation after having been blown away or sloshing around in our creeks and rivers and of course in Port Phillip Bay. It would be mindboggling for anyone not to have seen pictures of or read about the cruel and devastating impact that plastics have on our aquatic fauna. Who can forget images of turtles eating plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish; or reports of malnourished flesh-footed shearwater fledglings being fed an array of plastics mistaken by their parents for food? Seabirds, turtles and marine mammals are particularly susceptible to getting tangled in or swallowing plastic bags. CSIRO figures state that globally approximately one-third of marine turtles have probably ingested debris, with most of that debris being plastic, and that by 2050 plastic ingestion in sea birds may reach as high as 95 per cent.

But we also know there is an even more sinister impact from discarded plastic bags or in fact plastics in general. Over time they break down into smaller and smaller particles known as microplastics, which pollute the environment and are ingested by small animals. This significantly impacts not only the health of these animals but that of the entire ecosystem as toxic pollutants such as heavy metals are transmitted up the food chain. And it doesn’t stop there. Recent studies in Canada and Australia have found that, on the conservative side, ingestion of microplastics per person is akin to eating a credit card each week. Only reducing the number of lightweight plastic bags that Victorians use and ultimately throw away will help tackle what is a confronting future as well a consequence of plastic pollution. We looked at and learned from how other states introduced similar bans, and we are banning those bags made in whole or part of plastics where any part of the bag has a thickness of more than 35 microns or less. Those bags are easily blown away and easily break down into microplastics.

A commitment to amend the act and regulations and to give effect to the ban has been thoroughly thought through. As I said, we looked at and learned from how other states introduced similar bans as we wanted to ensure consistency for retailers and suppliers, particularly for those who operate nationally. We looked to practices overseas and, most importantly, we consulted with the Victorian community. I want to congratulate the minister on the highly successful consultation, which received over 8000 submissions, with more than 96 per cent of those supporting a ban on lightweight single-use plastic bags. Two-thirds of those responding also supported including biodegradable, degradable and compostable shopping bags in the ban. Switching to biodegradable plastic bags would not address these environmental problems caused by plastics as these bags break down into small pieces of plastic and cause the same problems for marine life and our oceans and waterways as conventional plastic bags. So I know that here in Victoria the community overwhelmingly supports action on our plastic addiction.

I also want to congratulate the minister on the National Retail Association delivering a comprehensive engagement, education and information program that will support retailers during the implementation of this ban. This program has a strong focus on helping small to medium-sized businesses by providing face-to-face engagement via 100 tours and workshops across Victoria. It also provides advice on practical things they can do to get ready, including preparing their customers, alternative bags that are allowed and other in-shop resources.

We know how hard it can be to change long-held habits, particularly in the absence of alternatives. We also know that through good community campaigns people’s habits can change. We have seen how willing Victorians are to change their patterns of behaviour and habits when provided with evidence of the harmful effects of plastic. The recent report of the Port Phillip EcoCentre Clean Bay Blueprint research project, funded by this government’s Port Phillip Bay Fund, showed there has been a reduction in the number of straws in the Yarra River. As the report’s authors noted, straws are amongst the most common items found washed up on beaches worldwide. This is a phenomenal outcome of the community, businesses and local governments like Melbourne City Council’s Queen Victoria Market and South Melbourne Market working together to reduce the use of plastic straws. And whilst we still have a long way to go to reduce the overall quantum of rubbish, including plastics coming into the bay, it is extremely heartening to see what can happen when the Victorian community and businesses work together and what can be achieved when government aids rather than hinders. I am confident that the forthcoming ban will not only reduce plastic pollution; it will build awareness of the issue by encouraging all Victorians to change habits, embrace re-usable bags and use them in their daily lives.

This bill is also about helping and recognising the hard work and commitment of the hundreds and hundreds of Victorian volunteer-based community and environmental groups whose members freely give up their time. One of those volunteer groups is the Friends of Lower Kororoit Creek. For those unfamiliar with Lower Kororoit Creek, it is that part of Kororoit Creek that flows south of Geelong Road, passing through Brooklyn, Altona North, Altona and finally into Port Phillip Bay. It forms the natural boundary between my electorate of Williamstown and Altona, represented by my friend the honourable Attorney-General. Those who are familiar with Kororoit Creek know that the creek used to be surrounded by industry, with nearby factories and abattoirs using the waterway for waste disposal. Last month on National Tree Day I had the absolute pleasure, alongside my friend the minister, of spending time planting trees with the Friends of Lower Kororoit Creek and celebrating the fantastic work they do.

In the year 2000, having noticed the terrible state of the creek, the amazing Geoff Mitchelmore enlisted friends and started this volunteer group. Through their efforts what once was a wasteland littered with shopping trolleys, dumped cars, rubble, rubbish and of course plastic bags has become a vibrant waterway that people in the western suburbs of Melbourne enjoy. The Attorney-General and I have both had the privilege to participate in these efforts. We know that along the way rebuilding efforts have been waylaid by a constant need to clean up plastic bags stuck in vegetation, soil, banks and water of the creek. This bill says to our volunteer organisations such as Friends of Lower Kororoit Creek that the Andrews Labor government is working with you. We have listened to you and we are working with you.

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) (15:10): I rise to speak on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019, which is a bill to ban certain single-use plastic bags here in Victoria. This is a bill that the Greens strongly support. In fact it is something that my Greens colleagues and I have been pushing for for a long time as we fight to get plastics out of our rivers and oceans. In fact I am told that 17 years ago Bob Brown actually introduced a bill into the federal Parliament to help reduce plastic bags in our community. And it was two years ago that former Greens MP Nina Springle introduced a bill in the Victorian Parliament to ban plastic bags, which we campaigned extensively for. Of the many campaigns that we did run in the last term that was far and away one of the most popular campaigns, including in the Prahran electorate, my electorate, where we held a ‘ban the bag’ forum where we heard from speakers from the Port Phillip EcoCentre about just why this was so important. Even more recently when I did my electorate-wide survey, as many members do in their own electorates, stopping plastic pollution and fixing the waste crisis was one of the top priorities for my constituents.

Why is this such an important reform? We have heard each speaker refer to the voluminous statistics about plastics out there in the oceans, and I think we need a few more just to kick this along. We know that the Yarra River is being clogged with plastic waste that is being carried by stormwater. Three clean-up blitzes, involving 320 volunteers, over the past year have removed 20 tonnes of waste from the river. As any volunteer will tell you, whether it is on the Yarra River, whether it is beach patrol on our beaches, whether it is volunteers on Clean Up Australia Day, they are finding some plastic out there in our rivers, in our parks and on our streets.

What we know as well is that the Yarra River is one of the biggest sources of rubbish going into Port Phillip Bay. In fact in June last year a 2.4-metre pygmy sperm whale which was pregnant washed up in distress on the beach in Williamstown and was later found to have a stomach full of plastic. Across Australia, and in fact across the globe, Australians use and throw away an estimated 4 billion lightweight plastic bags per year—that is 10 million bags per day.

We have got the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which stretches from the east coast of Japan to the west coast of America—ocean currents cause rubbish, mainly plastic, to concentrate there. Plastic is having a devastating effect on the Great Barrier Reef. It is estimated that there are 5.25 trillion plastic particles floating in the sea and 90 per cent of all seabirds have got plastic in their guts. Half of all sea turtles are being harmed by plastic waste. By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the sea. Every day 250 marine animals and 2700 seabirds are choking to death on plastic pollution in our oceans. These are incredibly distressing facts, and I am so glad that there is so much more consciousness of these facts out there in the community. That is, I think, what is driving a lot of the change and is certainly driving a lot of the community support behind this bill.

What has been happening in response to this? Well, here in Victoria we are introducing this bill, but we are behind the rest of Australia and behind the rest of the world. Besides New South Wales, Victoria is the only state or territory not to have implemented a ban. We have got South Australia, Tasmania—and I know the Greens, when they were in a coalition government there, certainly pushed that in their time in office and got that through—the Northern Territory and the ACT that have imposed bans on single-use plastic bags. South Australia’s plastic bag ban has been in place since 2009 and within just six months of that ban 200 million bags were prevented from entering landfill.

More than 50 countries and states have adopted the ban on the production and sale of plastic bags, so around the world India, China, Mexico, Bangladesh, Brazil, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana and Rwanda as well as a number of states in the USA have banned the bags. Just a shout-out to Bangladesh—the member for Warrandyte interjected when the member for Euroa was speaking and referenced Bangladesh, joking that we should or should not take our environmental advice from Bangladesh, but just to point out, Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries and a low-lying country that is heavily reliant on its waterways and very susceptible to natural disasters and the impacts of climate change, so perhaps we should be taking some of our environmental cues from the country of Bangladesh.

We have also seen responses from local government and local councils. Local councils right here in Victoria have passed a number of motions in support of banning the plastic bag and have even taken action on their own events and their own facilities in terms of banning not just plastic bags but other plastics as well—straws, cutlery and those sorts of things.

Then we have retailers. We have had the big retailers but we have also had, for example, the Prahran Market and the South Melbourne Market banning single-use plastic bags. The retailers Coles and Woolworths have prevented an estimated 1.5 million bags ending up in our environment. Apparently within three months there has been an 80 per cent drop in the consumption of plastic bags nationwide, according to the National Retail Association. Of course shoppers themselves had been leading the charge in this before retailers or governments acted. I know shoppers still forget their bags and have to do the walk of shame, but I think more and more people are remembering their bags. They get the frustration sometimes of getting the order from a Coles or Woolworth’s delivery coming in plastic bags, but I think those sorts of gaps are what this bill is going to address.

When the Greens introduced our bill in the previous Parliament it was subsequently voted down by the government and the opposition, but in fact my understanding is that the day before it was due to be debated we had an announcement from the government, during the Northcote by-election, that the bag would be banned, which we welcomed. It starts on 1 November this year and bans retailers from giving out plastic supermarket bags—those ones with the handles and 35 micrometres thick or less. I think we do need to look at the thicker bags and just see how it is implemented. I certainly do not think this is set and forget. There are also some exemptions in terms of fresh produce and whatnot, so I certainly think that once, hopefully, this bill passes, we do need to keep watching just how it is implemented.

Plastic bin liners and small, clear plastic bags used for fresh fruit and vegetables and animal waste will be exempt from this ban. There are offences for providing false information about banned bags and there are also some technical amendments within this bill to the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018, which is yet to come into force. What it means is that we will not see these single-use plastic bags flowing out into the sea and our oceans anymore and certainly not going into landfill where they can sit for hundreds of years after just a few minutes of use.

But there is more to do—there is more to do that has been occurring across the world and in fact in our local councils that are taking action in terms of reducing plastic waste. We have got drink and food containers, microfibres, balloons, plastic straws, cutlery, coffee cups, plastic cling wrap and a range of plastic packaging. One of the things that often comes up with constituents is all of this plastic packaging that you get when you buy stuff—that needs to be addressed. So this bill, as others have mentioned, is a step—it is one step—but there is so much more to do, particularly as we are in the middle of a waste crisis, a waste crisis that this government saw coming. They saw it coming.

We have got tonnes of recycling ending up in landfill or in dangerous stockpiles across the city. The government is still sitting on this now almost $400 million in its Sustainability Fund to address this crisis. We simply just do not understand why the government is not moving more quickly on this. We had the minister being asked a pretty straightforward question by the member for Brunswick about why she is not implementing a container deposit scheme, and I tell you what, the answer did not fill one with great confidence that this crisis is going to be addressed rapidly.

So, yes, we have got a step now with the plastic bag ban to come in on 1 November. We now need more plastics to be addressed by further legislation. A container deposit scheme needs to be implemented. Victoria is now the only state or territory not to have a container deposit scheme or not to have promised one. On our costings coming through from the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) it would cost just $9 million to implement and would generate revenue from unclaimed deposits of around $244 million, and of course that would go straight back into the waste and recycling systems.

We have got kerbside recycling for food and organic waste. This is one of my favourites. It comes up a lot in the Prahran electorate. So many people living in apartments do not want to put their food into the waste stream. Of course this is the most polluting form of waste when it ends up in landfill, producing greenhouse gases, and it does need a statewide response. Some councils can make it work from a financial perspective, but other councils, particularly in the inner city where there are apartments and the like, just cannot make it work. That is why we need a statewide approach to food and organic kerbside recycling.

We need to invest in infrastructure and create that circular economy. From our costings, again from the PBO, it would cost just $50 million to create a plastic recycling plant, and that would take around half of Victoria’s plastic recycling and of course generate revenue as well. The minister was talking a lot about how we need to create a market for these recycled products, which we do, so get on with it; you need to be starting mandatory procurement targets, and you can start with your government agencies. There are so many. Whether it is in infrastructure or whether it is in food, there is so much that can be done in terms of creating this industry.

Finally, I will end with this: it certainly is not through a waste-to-energy plant, something that would take up around about half of all landfill—a polluting waste-to-energy plant that is not in line with how we need to be doing recycling and reducing waste in Victoria.

I want to congratulate all the organisations and people who in any which way have signed up to support and join the campaign to ban the bag. This is very much your victory. It is a step in the right direction, but there is so much more to do.

Ms THOMAS (Macedon) (15:23): I am pleased to rise this afternoon to speak on this important bill. This legislation will introduce a ban on all single-use lightweight plastic shopping bags with a thickness of 35 microns or less—they will be banned—including bags made from degradable, biodegradable and compostable plastic. The ban will apply to bags being provided at retail outlets, including supermarkets, fashion boutiques, fast-food outlets, convenience stores and service stations. The bill provides for a ban via amendments to the Environment Protection Act 1970 to commence in late 2019.

Similar to most other Australian jurisdictions, the bill introduces two offences: for a retailer to sell or provide a banned plastic bag to a person to carry or transport goods sold or provided by the retailer from the retail premises; and for a person to supply or manufacture plastic bags, whether by act or omission, and provide to any other person information that the person knows or should reasonably know is false or misleading about the composition of a banned plastic bag or whether or not a plastic bag is a banned plastic bag.

This is a terrific bill and one that responds to the concerns expressed by many people in my community. It is an important milestone in tackling problematic plastics and delivering positive outcomes for our natural environment, native wildlife, waste streams and public amenity.

The ban will not only reduce plastic pollution, it will build awareness of the issue by encouraging all Victorians to embrace re-usable bags and use them in daily shopping activities. I am not the only person in the house who from time to time will forget to take my re-usable bags to the supermarket. I have actually made a point of ensuring that I have a number of my own bags emblazoned with my name now in the boot of my car, and these bags are available for my constituents at my electorate office. But from time to time there are people who will forget their bags, and we need to be understanding of that. This is about a behaviour change process that is well under way. I am very pleased to say that 76 per cent of Victorians are already taking their own bags when shopping. It would be my expectation that as people continue to grow accustomed to this, by the time that this bill takes effect people will be taking their own re-usable bags with them.

One of the things I found interesting in preparing for this contribution was to understand that there are some cohorts that are still challenged by this, and it is young Victorians. Fifty-four per cent of them are still not taking their bags, and similarly 57 per cent of people on higher household incomes are still more likely to rely on single-use plastic bags. So we have got a couple of target groups that we need to work on, but I know that Victorians want to do the right thing and are passionate about action to protect our environment, and I do not think we will have any difficulty with consumers in implementing this ban. It has been supported by an intensive retailer and community engagement and education campaign. Since March 2019 the National Retail Association has been engaging with Victorian retailers to help them prepare for this change.

As I said, we know that here in Victoria the community has overwhelmingly supported action on our plastic addiction. Indeed over the three-month public consultation the government received more than 8000 individual responses. I of course, like many in this place, received many myself. I would like to put on the record a note that I received from one of my younger constituents:

My name is Nicole Makin; I go to Sacred Heart College in Kyneton, I want to express my concerns about the fact, that we have not banned plastic bags yet in our state.

Right now we are one of the three states that haven’t banned them yet, this includes NSW, VIC and WA, but following 2018 NSW will no longer be part of this group, leaving us and WA left to banned plastic bags.

Every day we use 10 million, plastic bags and 4–6 billion annually, that is enough to fill the MCG to the top two times, because we use so many plastic bags most of the time we have no idea what to do with them, so most of them end up in landfill when they could be used for other thing like bin liners, or maybe they could be reused, even if we don’t ban them yet, we can still find ways to reuse them.

Please consider what I said and, help Australia get rid of plastic bag, once and for all.

So I say to Nicole: I am glad to make this contribution in this place today, and I thank you for your advocacy to me. And I thank the many others of my constituents who contacted me on this issue. As Nicole has told us, in fact Australians have used many, many plastic bags every day, and of particular concern are those that end up in our oceans and waterways.

One of the issues that people have spoken to me about I think is probably important to clarify. People have said to me, ‘Well, what about the biodegradable bags? Why are we banning those as well?’. As I understand it—and I think it is important that people are made aware of this fact—degradable, biodegradable and compostable plastic still have significant impacts on our environment. Switching to biodegradable plastic bags does not address the environmental problem that is caused by plastics. While these bags do break down, they break down into small pieces of plastic and cause the same problems for marine life and our oceans and waterways as conventional plastic bags. Certainly I will be ensuring that people in my community understand that it is important that we also ban these biodegradable plastic bags.

I am very proud of the work that our government is doing right now to tackle one of the great challenges of our time, and that is this issue about waste management and disposal. This is a global challenge, let us be clear about it. It is not our problem alone to solve here in Victoria. It is one that the whole world is facing and indeed, as the Prime Minister recently noted, it is a problem for the whole of Australia. We can no longer just pack our waste off to China. This has caused massive disruption, there is no doubt about that, but this disruption causes each and every one of us to think differently about ways in which we can move forward with recycling and move forward with re-using items and, importantly, think about how we can reduce our consumption.

Now our government has committed $135 million to ensure the sustainability of the recycling industry in Victoria. In fact only today the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change has announced further support for local government to ensure that they receive financial support during this period where we manage the closure of SKM. It is a complicated and complex problem, but this bill is an important one. It says to the people of Victoria that this is a government that is committed to doing what it can to reduce the proliferation of plastics that are dangerous to our environment. We are a government, as I said, that is committed to a whole range of innovations in this space.

I did want to briefly mention Envirostream, which is a business in New Gisborne—a fantastic global-leading business that is currently recycling 95 per cent of all battery matter, so it is an e-waste point. The minister for environment came to visit Envirostream. They are exporting the component parts to Korea, and then they come back to us again as batteries. This is a perfect example of a circular economy in action. We have also—this government—made an investment in Hepburn shire in a waste-to-energy project. This is a fantastic project that is providing power to heat our Daylesford hospital as a consequence of the work that the shire is doing, supported by the Victorian government.

Finally, I did want to say that the banning of plastic bags is good news for the terrific people of the Boomerang Bags movement. Across my electorate Boomerang Bags have really taken hold. Across Kyneton, Romsey Lancefield and Riddells Creek communities are getting together and sewing re-usable bags. I am proud to say I have one from each of these groups in the back of my car, with my own branded bags that are available from my electorate office. As I said, the banning of the plastic bag will provide further impetus to Boomerang Bags, which is a great community organisation, a social enterprise bringing people together to work collectively for the betterment of our environment. I commend this bill to the house. It is a really terrific piece of legislation.

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (15:33): I rise to comment on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019, and I am pleased that the coalition will be supporting the banning of the use of single-use plastic bags, those bags with a thickness of 35 microns or less whether or not they are made from degradable, biodegradable and compostable plastic. This is a really important move and certainly it is something that I know a number of my constituents in Caulfield feel very strongly about. In fact just on 12 months ago we started a bit of a campaign of giving out bags that could be re-used at supermarkets, knowing that the supermarkets themselves would be following an initiative of banning plastic bags.

I think is really important to point out that we did have two of the major supermarkets lead very strongly in banning these bags. That is where I think it is very important to have individuals take up the action in protecting the environment and businesses also getting involved when they know it makes sense. And this does make sense. We saw the survey that was done: over 90 per cent of people supported banning of the plastic bag. There are certainly better ways of doing this. Rather than waste, there is nothing better than getting into the habit of re-using bags, taking them with you to the supermarket and ensuring that they are not thrown out after one or two uses. And that is the change that has happened. We have seen, through the National Retail Association and the work they have done, an 80 per cent reduction in these bags since the campaign was implemented, which shows that these things work. Certainly other speakers around the chamber today have said that it can become difficult to get used to. When you are used to one type of behaviour, it is very hard to adjust that, but once you get used to it then it certainly does become part of your daily life and ultimately it protects the environment, which is absolutely crucial.

In the past we have seen Australians use up to 10 million plastic bags each and every year, That is 4 billion a year, and of these approximately 150 million end up in the oceans and waterways, contributing to an estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped into the oceans every year. And this is something we want to avoid. A number of years ago when I had a business we worked very closely with the Dolphin Research Institute in Port Phillip Bay. Jeff Weir has been a very strong advocate for protecting the bay for probably 20-plus years. And Jeff would be the first person to tell you what the harmful effects are of having plastic ending up in the ocean. And that is why we need to protect our marine life, we need to protect our oceans, we need to protect tourism and, ultimately, we need to protect our planet. And that can be done with these very proactive steps that people can take that do not necessarily require a huge cost but are just a change of habit. And that is why we need to be looking at this in a whole range of different ways.

We have heard people talk about the circular economy and there are things like product stewardship. I note from working with an organisation called Close the Loop, which recycles toner cartridges and mobile phones and what have you, where you take a product at end of life and turn that product into a park bench or some other type of material. Ultimately the manufacturer has actually paid for that as part of initially creating it, and that is part of that product stewardship that Close the Loop have been very, very successful at developing out in Broadmeadows. I was very proud to be involved in helping them in the very, very early days and seeing an organisation like that absolutely grow. That is where we need to be. We need to be focused on where we can help individuals take responsibility for ensuring our planet is clean by the actions that they take themselves. There are, in many cases, little things that people do whether it be using a keep cup or whether it be a different straw that you use. There are little things that people can do in terms of changing their behaviour that can make a huge change to benefit our planet.

We often hear of grand schemes and certainly young people being focused on the bigger issues. But one of the things that I would really like to see young people work on and certainly that I would like to work with young people on, which we are doing in our electorate, is the things that they can affect today—not tomorrow or in 10 years, but what they can do today. Whether it be recycling programs in their schools, whether it be solar programs and looking at the way they use energy in their schools and in their homes, these are things that young people can affect today and these are what young people should be involved in—whether it be kitchen gardens that they could be operating also in their schools or whether it be composting, which is something that young people should be involved in.

I quite often give Glen Eira City Council a hard time, and I know, Acting Speaker Dimopoulos, this is one of your councils as well. Glen Eira council initiated the kitchen caddy program where food scraps can be dumped into your green bin—a great initiative. Rather than ending up in the waste bin, they can be put in the green bin and be recycled appropriately. This was a very, very simple initiative and I know the mayor, Jamie Hyams, worked very hard in educating the community to ensure that this was happening.

But there are a number of issues at the moment that the government has on its hands, issues that unfortunately they are not managing well when it comes to recycling. We have seen the recycling crisis hit our state in a big way. Certainly Scott Morrison has got involved in this, but ultimately the state should be responsible, when it comes to collection of the landfill levy, the bin tax, to invest it in recycling programs to ensure that waste can be properly recycled and managed and not end up in landfill. The recycling crisis hit earlier this year, with one of my councils—the City of Port Phillip—being at the back end of that where their recycled material ended up in landfill. Twenty-two thousand tonnes of material that should have been recycled ending up in landfill is the equivalent of 11 MCGs—11 MCGs that should have been recycled but were not—ultimately because the Andrews Labor government failed in their due diligence in managing this issue. This should be something that all Victorians should be really upset about.

We have been doing some surveys in Caulfield and it has been a huge issue—probably one of the largest issues that we are facing right now. My constituents in Caulfield are telling me that they are unhappy with the Andrews Labor government in that they have not managed recycling and waste management in our state appropriately when our constituents, the people of Caulfield, put their stuff in the yellow bin, thinking that they are doing their bit for the environment, and that ends up in landfill and is not recycled. That ultimately is a failure, and that is why many of my constituents are telling me that they are very, very unhappy at the moment with what is going on.

I would like to give a bit of a shout-out to a number of people who are doing some great work. Love Our Street 3162 is a campaign that meets one hour a month to clean up the streets, and they have collected tonnes and tonnes of product and are certainly doing their bit for the environment. I want to thank those people—Gretchen, Julie, Ruth and Sophie—who do a fantastic job with Love Our Street. Also in Elwood we have the Plogging Group, which is jogging and also picking up rubbish. It is a great initiative that also keeps you fit. I understand that they have collected 658 kilograms of rubbish in the year that they have been set up. I also want to shout out to the World Mission Society Church of God, the youth and adult worker volunteer program. I met with them on the St Kilda Road foreshore only a few months ago and they ended up with over 150 volunteers, all there to clean up their beach. They run active, ongoing recycling programs and environment clean-up programs all around Victoria. They are very, very strong in this. They have pledged to try and save our planet with these really strong initiatives and I commend them.

It all starts with people’s individual actions in taking the initiative and doing their bit. This is part of it in terms of thinking about waste rather than just throwing something away and grabbing something else. Plastic bags being banned is the start of a very important thing. There are a number of other things that we should be doing in terms of supporting the circular economy, as I said today. This is very, very important, but I believe that it is really up to the individual being incentivised in any way by government with the right programs to ensure we do not have a recycling crisis like the one that unfortunately we have at the moment that is being led by the Andrews Labor government.

Mr EREN (Lara) (15:43): It is great to be back in this place and of course we are straight into it with a wonderful bill before the house which protects our environment and protects our future for future generations. I want to commend the minister responsible for this bill for her hard work and the due diligence she gives to this very important portfolio, because there is so much at stake.

This bill, which is the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019, is a very important bill, as I have indicated, in relation to not only how we deal with recycling in terms of the added pressures that are brought to bear on our state. I know the previous speaker mentioned the Andrews government and the action we are taking that they are not happy about, but you wish that once in a while the opposition could pick up the phone and call their colleagues in Canberra, because I think it is not just our problem. This is a national problem and they need to deal with it nationally. We can do the best that we can as a state government, which we are doing, and I will go through in detail some of the initiatives that we have in this state, the state with the strongest economy and with the fastest growing population. All of those things are because we are a good state government. People want to live in this state because it has a strong economy, lots of job prospects and of course the wonderful communities that we are in terms of population growth. There is a reason why people are moving here. It is because it is a great place to live, work and raise your family. That is why the bill before the house is so important—to make sure that future generations have the opportunities that we have and enjoy the environment that we have at the moment.

I want to point out that as the former minister for tourism I know how important tourism is and the industry itself is. One of the assets that we have in publicising our state to those interstate and international tourists is our natural environment and of course we want to maintain that reputation that we have of having a natural environment that has people coming to this state from other states and territories, and indeed internationally, to have a look at what we have on offer. That is why this bill goes a long way to protecting our environment in the short, medium and long term.

This legislation will introduce a ban on single-use lightweight plastic shopping bags with a thickness of 35 microns or less. This will include bags that are made from degradable, biodegradable and compostable plastic. This ban will apply to bags being provided at retail outlets, including supermarkets, fashion boutiques, fast-food outlets, convenience stores and service stations.

Similar to other jurisdictions across the nation, the bill introduces two offences, and I want to get this on the record so that the people who are involved with this industry can fully understand what is at stake if they do the wrong thing and breach the law that has come before this house. The offences are: a retailer to sell or provide a banned plastic bag to a person to carry or transport goods sold or provided by the retailer from the retail premises—a supply offence. A person who supplies or manufactures plastic bags, whether by act or omission, provide to any other person information that person knows or should reasonably know is false or misleading about the composition of the banned plastic bag—information offence.

The bill also makes amendments to the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018 to rectify minor errors that create inconsistencies and/or will allow for unintended consequences. This ban is an important milestone, as I have indicated, in the government’s commitment to tackling problematic plastics and delivering positive outcomes for our natural environment, native wildlife, waste streams and public amenities. We always, as a good government, consult widely, and that is why there were literally thousands of individual responses to the consultation process with the wider community, which is why we are here today putting this legislation before the house. We know that Victorian communities are overwhelmingly supportive of action being taken on our plastic bag addiction, and in creating this legislation we held a three-month consultation process. We had over 8000 individual responses. In those responses there was overwhelming support to ban plastic bags.

The Victorian community wants to see decisive action to reduce plastic pollution, and that is exactly what this bill will deliver. It is good to know that 76 per cent of Victorians are already taking the initiative by taking their own bags when they go shopping. On occasions we all forget. You sort of have it in the boot, you take it out, you use it, you take the shopping in and then you forget to put back in the boot. I think I have got about 300 re-usable bags at home. Of course, as the previous speakers have indicated, we have re-usable, environmentally friendly shopping bags at our electorate offices; our constituents come in, take advantage of and use them appropriately.

This ban will not only reduce plastic pollution but will build awareness of the issues by encouraging all Victorians to embrace re-usable bags and use them in their daily shopping. It will also, importantly, reduce the rate of contamination from plastic bags in kerbside recycling bins and improve sorting, reprocessing and the quality of recyclables. We all know that although plastic is lightweight and low cost, it does not go away easily. It breaks into many pieces and ends up in landfill or as litter, and it can cause long-term harm to the environment and indeed wildlife. In fact National Geographic magazine reported last year that of all the plastic ever produced, 90 per cent has not been recycled. Plastic is an urgent environmental problem, clearly. Our government recognises that this is a complex issue which requires strong consultation with the community. I have mentioned that we have done that and we have taken some of the ideas that were presented by those 8000 individual submissions and formulated this policy that we have today.

We are currently experiencing the closure of the biggest mixed plastic recycling market in the world. I am not sure if many people were aware that the recycling that we had done was done in China until China said, ‘We’re not doing it anymore’. I am not sure how many members of our population knew that this was happening in China, but it is now our problem. Obviously, as I have indicated earlier, it is not just a state problem; it is a national problem and we need the assistance of the national government to ensure that we can accommodate the growth in our population and accommodate the growth in our economy to make sure that we are acting appropriately when it comes to the environment.

I have had my fair share of problems relating to recycling in my electorate. We saw a recycler close its doors in December 2017, which caused all sorts of problems. The Environment Protection Authority Victoria is now taking severe action against this operator, C & D Recycling, and we as the government have committed $30 million for a clean-up. There is 350 000 cubic metres of waste inappropriately stacked up, stocked up, at that location, which is causing a fair bit of angst not only to the local community in my electorate of Lara but also throughout Geelong. Obviously we know the dire consequences if, God forbid, a fire were to start at a location like that. It would be devastating not only to the local area but indeed to the wider Geelong area, so $30 million has been allocated. It is not going to happen overnight, but the clean-up has begun. Clearly we need to take action, and we are taking action in relation to that.

I am also proud to be part of this government, which announced yesterday that it is tackling ongoing waste management issues with $11.3 million to provide immediate financial relief to councils and invest in infrastructure to improve the quality of 100 000 tonnes of recycled material. This short-term financial relief supports councils immediately while all levels of government work together on a longer term solution that must be included in an overhaul of kerbside recycling.

In the limited time I have left, we are as a government very much focused and concentrating on this very important issue. We understand its importance not only for the residents of our state and indeed for our industries but also importantly for our future generations. We want to ensure that my great, great-great-grandkids have something to be proud of.

Without further ado, I support the bill, and I wish it a speedy passage through this house and indeed the other house.

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (15:53): I support the banning of plastic bags, I know my community supports the banning of plastic bags and I know the schools in my electorate support the banning of plastic bags. There is nothing surer because of the way it was spoken about recently when I was in my office with the Emerald Secondary College Stop Trashing Our Planet team. This is a group of young people who are looking to put their voice out there and make sure they have an impact on the environment because, as they say, this is for their future and this issue is so important. Ethan, Christian, Ruby and Jaicob attended. Unfortunately Lena, who was supposed to come, was unwell. These students came to my office. We do a podcast about local issues and things that are happening locally. Their conversation that day was around things they want to do to protect the environment. They spoke about banning straws; they spoke about plastic bags; they spoke about container deposit schemes. They are even going so far as working with the school, with the support of their teachers and principal Jodie Doble, to try and raise money to buy a reverse vending machine for the school.

The program that they run at that school is at the moment if you go out and buy at the canteen a number of drinks, you can return the bottles or the cans to the canteen. If you return a certain number, which I think is 20, you get a free drink—to create an environment of encouraging young people in their school to bring rubbish in. These are year 8, 9 and 10 students at a local school in my electorate who understand that they need to start with education, and that education can a lot of the time be led by young people.

They spoke about the environmental impact of plastics going out into the ocean. I will not quote Ethan’s quote of the day because, I will be honest, off the top of my head I cannot remember the exact number, but he spoke about when a whale was caught and they pulled that whale out, the amount of plastic that was inside its guts—

Mr Edbrooke: Twenty-two kilos.

Mr BATTIN: Twenty-two kilos was inside that whale—thank you very much for that—which is shocking. When you think about what we are ingesting, the people who eat seafood, it is obviously what the animal life within the oceans is eating as well and the effect that is going to have on the environment. These students understand that they need to make a change, and they are also trying to educate the community around them.

One part of their plan is they would also like to see a reverse vending machine in Emerald itself, which they want in order to run the program, so they can get some actual statistics, some figures, as to what is happening in the local community so they can continue their campaign and their push for what they want to see change through our environment. I have to say that during the podcast—we will do a promotion for it, but it is called the ‘Brad’s Brew’ podcast if you want to jump on board—we were talking to those young kids and they actually educated us a lot on some of the things that they are learning in schools.

I am only 43 years old, but we do not have to go back that long when you listen to some of the changes that are happening in schools, with environment captains. Instead of just school captains and house captains, we have got wetland warriors, we have got frog bogs, we have got the students who are taking care of that. They are learning so much more about the impact that we have on the earth and the impact that we have on pollution. It is so important that they get an understanding of how they can make small changes and big changes. I note the member for Caulfield said, ‘Talk about things you can do today’, but I think it is really important too that young people are talking and thinking about the things that they can do tomorrow, the things they can change in the future and re-educating not just themselves but obviously me—and the next generation above me as well so they can get that information going back to them. They think that is very, very important.

One government that is listening in relation to the banning of plastics in Australia is the South Australian government, with David Speirs, MP, and Premier Steven Marshall, who are probably leading the way in the discussions they are having around banning plastics and banning plastic straws. I think we could all take a leaf out of their book on just going out there and doing it rather than talking about it—getting into action and making sure that we are bringing in the legislation to ensure that we are protecting the environment.

David Speirs is a member of Parliament and a minister over in South Australia and he represents an area along the coast, so he has seen firsthand and understands the vital importance of making change within the community. What they have shown over there is that no matter who does it—it does not matter if it is Liberal or Labor—when we are talking about these issues that can have an impact on us and everyone in the next generation, we have got to take into consideration how we can work together, and that includes working with your communities, to deliver the outcomes that are best for your local community.

When we are talking about the environment one part that I always have a concern about is that when we go out there we hear many in the community talk about the environment or our economy. The reality is you cannot have one without the other. They actually work closely together. I have been to various countries—you can use India and Indonesia as examples. Countries that are struggling in parts of their community with the economy, you will find, also tend to have the worst outcomes for the environment. Anyone who has travelled through parts of India will know that there are parts of India where the economy is struggling. People cannot get a job. People are worried about putting food on the table. They are living in houses that you would not normally say are fit for people to live in, and they are struggling every day. These tend to be the areas where you have an impact on the environment that is quite negative. So it is important we have an economy to support our environment. And that economy has to be growing. It has to be creating a better and bigger middle class not just in those countries but around the world because that is the support that it can get. Then we can see long-term investment in the environment that is going to have an impact globally.

China is obviously going more and more across to a larger economy. They are going to have more and more middle class in their economy over there, and we are seeing changes. Are they the changes we all want to see? There is probably more that can be done, but the reality is that we are seeing changes with a bigger middle class. The more that people are comfortable at home and can put food on the table, the more they can turn their minds to other things that will protect the environment and provide outcomes for everyone, and I think it is really important that we continue to do that.

I will finish up my contribution today by saying that the banning of plastic bags is not just something that is good for Victoria, it is not just something that is good for my electorate, and it is not just something that is good for Melbourne—it is something that is good for the entire country, and we need the entire country to have a look at it from state to state. But banning plastic bags will make a difference, and I implore every single member of Parliament to go and speak to that next generation, the ones that are talking about programs to protect their future, the ones that are learning more and more about it, and also work with them to explain how important our economy is, because if we do not have that economy, we cannot have the support to invest in programs in the future to make sure we are protecting our environment long-term.

Mr J BULL (Sunbury) (16:00): Thank you very much, Acting Speaker Dimopoulos. I am delighted to see you, delighted to see you in the chair and absolutely delighted to be back in the house, to be contributing to debate on this very important bill, the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019.

This government, the Andrews Labor government, knows and understands the importance of our natural environment, its protection and the impact of doing enough—or probably more importantly not doing enough—for future generations to come. I am pleased that this bill has received support from both sides of the house. There should not be a debate. There is no debate, no secret, no point of contention that our environment is of course under significant pressure.

Acting Speaker, as you know, as the world evolves, as populations grow, as our land use management and planning, our manufacturing processes, our transport and our way of life change, our environment is of course forced to change with us. There is no doubt that significant human impact is made on our environment. There is no better example of this than climate change, and I am incredibly proud that this government, the Andrews Labor government, in our previous term introduced the VRET—the Victorian renewable energy target—of 25 per cent by 2020, 40 per cent by 2025 and the introduction of the target of 50 per cent by 2030. These are not just baseless figures, Acting Speaker. As you know, having these targets drive investment, real and tangible investment, that results in a greater output and greater production of renewable energy through solar and through wind, and what I think is of critical importance alongside of the new technology is the ability to drive the jobs market in areas where we know jobs are critically important—in rural and regional Victoria. That is something that I think is terrific for the state. This government also knows that we have a broader responsibility, a profound responsibility, to the people of this state and to future generations to come and we know that it is important to address those challenges.

Some in this house may also know, because I have mentioned it in previous contributions, that I am a really keen scuba diver and I have had the great opportunity and the great chance to dive in some great places all over the world. Recently I actually had a chance to join the Minister for Roads and Minister for Fishing and Boating on a dive in Port Phillip Bay to look at some really important projects around reef restoration and filtering of the water of Port Phillip Bay.

But I think what is most concerning is that over the years what you do notice under the water is an increasing level of plastics; you see this through diving in a whole range of various waters. On a trip a few years ago I remember being out in waves on a surfboard and literally swimming through plastic. There had been some significant rains in the area through the stormwater system and swimmers were actually wading through plastic. There is really nothing much worse than that. If we are able to feel the level of plastic in the water, you can only imagine the damage and the impact on the marine life and the biodiversity right through the system.

As you know, Acting Speaker, these plastics have huge impacts on marine life, as I mentioned, on biodiversity and on the long-term health of our waterways. That is why this bill is so critically important and why I am very pleased to be speaking today on this piece of legislation. As other members have mentioned, the bill will introduce a ban on single-use lightweight plastic bags—shopping bags with a thickness of 35 microns or less, including bags made from biodegradable and compostable plastic. The ban will apply to bags being provided at retail outlets, including supermarkets, fashion boutiques, fast-food outlets, convenience stores and service stations.

From listening to earlier contributions, this really is about a readjustment period for Victorians and I think for people across the country. I was just listening to the speaker before the previous speaker and hearing about the adjustment of actually remembering to take your re-usable bags to the supermarket; I think on quite a few occasions I have done the same thing. You do see people going in and out of their cars, already making the adjustment to better shopping bags—re-usable shopping bags. I think that we are very much creatures of habit. It is important to educate but also to provide alternative options that are sound options for people. I think it is important that the community is with us on this, and I might say a little bit more about that later in the contribution.

The bill provides for a ban via amendments to the Environment Protection Act 1970 to commence in late 2019 and regulations under the Environment Protection Act 2017, expected to commence in July 2020. Similar to in most other Australian jurisdictions, the bill introduces two offences—for a retailer who sells or provides a banned plastic bag to a person to carry or transport goods, and for a person who supplies or manufactures plastic bags who, whether by act or omission, provides to any other person information that the person knows or should reasonably know is false or misleading about the composition of a banned plastic bag or whether or not the plastic bag is banned in that instance.

As I mentioned earlier, we know that the community, importantly, is with us on this decision. There was overwhelming support in the three-month public consultation period, with over 8000 individual responses. The community want to see decisive action to reduce plastic pollution, and that is exactly what this bill will deliver.

Going back to the readjustment period, I understand that it will take some time. But I think on balance this is a very important step and part of a broader picture, a broader suite of reforms. When we look at the Victorian renewable energy target, when we look at the announcements around recycling made today, do they present challenges? Yes. Do we walk away from those challenges? No. We are a government that has demonstrated that, in the five years that we have been in office each and every day. The challenges that do arise are great and many, but we are always willing to work with the community to take the best advice available through science, research, those that work in the industry and all of our communities to make good, responsible, dynamic, nimble, reasonable decisions that benefit this state.

In the time I have got remaining I will mention, as I know other members have mentioned, some of the, frankly, frightening statistics: 10 million plastic bags are used every day across Australia—astonishingly, 4 billion every year—and 150 million end up in our oceans and our waterways, contributing to an estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped into the ocean every year.

Although plastic is a lightweight and low-cost product, Acting Speaker Dimopoulos, as you know, it does not break down and its impact is long-lasting and devastating. We know that plastics do play an important part in our daily lives, being strong and lightweight, and they have a huge variety of uses. What is important is that we continue to look at that science, look at the investment, work with industry and work with the community to get the very best possible outcomes, the very best possible solutions through policy, which we can bring to this house each and every day to continue to make Victoria the best state in Australia to live in.

We will always work with science, work with industry and work with stakeholders to improve every element of public policy that we can. This is a critically important piece of legislation because it will reduce our consumption of plastic bags and inherently make our environment a better place. It will make Victoria a better place, and that is why I am very proud to commend the bill to the house.

Ms McLEISH (Eildon) (16:10): I rise to speak on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019 and flag that the opposition is supporting this bill. The bill has two key objectives. Obviously the first one is about the banning of lightweight plastic shopping bags, and there is also the second objective about correcting some minor technical errors in the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018, which is a bit of a concern because that was only last year. We have obviously rushed something through without doing all the due diligence, seeing that there are errors that have needed to be corrected so soon.

Back to the substantive objective of the banning of plastic bags. If we look specifically at what the legislation is doing, it will introduce a ban on all single-use lightweight plastic shopping bags with a thickness of 35 microns, so that is pretty thin. This includes bags that are made from degradable, biodegradable and compostable plastic. Typically we get these bags when we are doing supermarket shopping or buying from various retail outlets, often fast food or fashion, and markets will often use these lightweight plastic bags. So this ban will apply to those retail outlets, and there are some offences along the way with this as well.

For a very long time I have been a strong opponent of single-use plastic bags, and I have certainly been a long-time subscriber to using alternative methods. Back in the mid-1980s I would use string bags. Sometimes they caused a bit of grief when you were doing fruit and vegetable shopping because things would often stick out of the sides. Now I find that I have got other lightweight bags in my handbag all the time and in the car, and I have done this for decades and decades and have never taken up the option of a plastic bag from a supermarket. Doing market shopping I would usually carry a basket and put my fruit and vegetables directly into that to avoid using a plastic bag. There are many alternatives, so when this was mooted and a lot of people were very worried about how this might impact them and their habit of how they do things, I thought that this could be done fairly smoothly. In fact I think we found that the major retailers moved on this before the government did. We saw Woolworths and Coles in particular take the initiative to change the practices in their shops.

In fact on the day that they introduced the changes that would come into effect, I visited the Coles in Healesville to see how it was going on day one, and what was really quite remarkable was that it went extremely smoothly. There was not one criticism given to the staff there. I spoke to people on the checkouts and the express and to the managers, and it had gone swimmingly. People had come in with their re-usable bags. Some of those re-usable bags were plastic, some of them might have been the member for Eildon bags or others might have been ones that they had picked up through various different outlets. We see that now too. You go to the supermarket, people get out of their car and typically they will take four or five bags if they are doing a larger shop into the supermarket with them.

In Warburton for some time and in other small towns they have used the concept of boomerang bags. They would have them at the shopping centre, so if you did not have a bag you would go in and you could pick up a bag that was there. Often they were homemade, and you could take them home and when you came back next time you could put it back if you brought your own bags. I have also seen many country towns, including Warburton, that have undertaken bag-making workshops, or at fetes and things like that—they have had people there on the sewing machines out to do that because there are alternatives, and I think a lot of these alternatives work really well.

Why is this legislation needed? The key concerns for me have always been about the environmental impacts of plastic. I am not sure how much everyone knows about plastic. We all know it is very versatile, it is very lightweight and it is easy for transporting, and the costs are quite comparable to heavier tins and things like that. But like most plastics that rely on something that comes out of the ground, plastic bags have their start in life out of crude oil. With the transformation to polyethylene or polythene, if you have a look you can see that for a re-usable drink bottle, or actually not even—a disposable drink bottle—the amount of crude oil to make one drink bottle is actually quite staggering when you can see what is required. So I think this can also have an impact on the amount of oil that is required to make the plastics.

On top of that we have their longer life and the issues that they have with not breaking down, and they end up in our waterways. I find this really quite distressing. They end up in our lakes, rivers and then ultimately in the bays and in the oceans. Some of the stories that you hear are really quite horrendous. There is an example that is particularly heartbreaking of a turtle in Queensland in a marina on the Sunshine Coast that was not getting any better. It kept getting fed and kept coming up to the boat and was clearly not well. When it did die the autopsy revealed that what had happened was that it had ingested a plastic bag that had filled the lining of its stomach so any bit of food that went in was actually going into the plastic bag and was not making it into the body of the turtle. I found that really quite disturbing. One of the impacts that we are going to see with the banning of plastic bags is on the amount of pollution. There are millions of tonnes that make it into our waterways, and having that removed is certainly a good thing.

This is not going to be smooth sailing for everybody. I know that some businesses have worried about the costs of replacing plastic bags, because not only are they very lightweight but they are also very cheap and easy to use. So for a number of businesses—and I think the major retailers would also say this—there will be a cost in this area for them to offer thicker bags; they will have to put a cost on them if people are going to be using those bags and not bringing their own in. But there are many small business outlets in the city for takeaway foods. Melbourne has a very outdoorsy culture, and there are lots of people buying food on the run. In the shopping centres there are loads of little outlets, and typically if you have got your Indian or Chinese takeaway, they put it in the plastic container and they are worried it is going to seep out, so they will put it into a plastic bag as well. They do that and pop the spork in without thinking about whether you have an alternative.

I think a lot of these small businesses will struggle to implement this. They probably struggle to make a good living already. I think we do need to make sure that we help those businesses along the way so that they can change their habits, because not only is it our habits as users—consumers, at the end of the day—but it is often their habits as businesses as to how quickly they will pop things in a plastic bag and give it to you, even when you have an alternative with you. So there is a little bit of education that needs to be done along the way, but I think we certainly can get there.

I also want to make note that we have used the 35-micron unit and in New Zealand they have used 70, which is twice as heavy. We have opted for the very, very light end there. When we talk about habits as well, a lot of us in our households would say, ‘Look, we use those plastic bags a second and a third time’. Typically people would put rubbish in them, re-using them as bin liners, and it has been raised whether or not the sales of bin liners might increase as a result and that that might be a heavier plastic, so we may not have a net overall balance.

I have found that certainly in our house we have never had to buy—and I do not buy—any commercial plastics that are re-usable. I have not used Glad wrap for decades.

Ms Britnell: How impressive is that!

Ms McLEISH: It is very impressive. I have not used plastic bags either, and we have got by absolutely fine, without question. Sometimes I need to remind the family that they could do a little bit better there. They will often forget a plastic bag, but it is certainly something that people can do. There are other alternatives. Sometimes when you buy other things they might have plastic wrapping around them. There are things you can do so you do not need to use single-use plastic bags in the household. We have found it very easy. As I said, I have practised these behaviours since the mid-1980s, so I am a long-time supporter of reducing our reliance on plastic in this way. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr STAIKOS (Bentleigh) (16:20): Unlike the member for Eildon, I have not been carrying around string bags since the 1980s, but that is a very, very good effort. It is a pleasure to speak on this bill and a pleasure to be back, and I have noticed a few more members with beards. Member for Frankston, you are looking very good, might I say. But it is a pleasure to speak on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019, a bill that I think represents an important step forward in protecting our environment, protecting our oceans and our waterways and of course our native wildlife.

This bill bans single-use lightweight plastic shopping bags with a thickness of 35 microns or less. It is a ban that applies to bags being provided at retail outlets, including supermarkets, fashion boutiques, fast-food outlets, convenience stores and service stations. One thing that I know to be true of Victorians is that we can adapt for a good cause. Victorians will change lifelong habits. They will alter their lifestyles in order to live more sustainably, and I think maybe the greatest example to date of that was during the Bracks government’s term regarding water restrictions. The people of Victoria knew there was a need to save water. We were in terrible drought conditions. Our catchments were at perilously low levels. We had a government of course at the time that communicated that message well. Even when those water restrictions were lifted Victorians did not change their habits in many ways. In fact Victorians continue to this day, many years after the end of those water restrictions, to be careful in their water use.

I think what we are seeing here now is something very similar. Even before this ban on single-use lightweight plastic bags has been put in place, even before the two major supermarkets banned single-use lightweight plastic bags from their own operations, Victorians started to do the right thing. As has been quoted several times during the debate today—but I will quote it again—76 per cent of Victorians are already taking their own re-usable bags with them to go shopping. A number of members have said that they have often forgotten to bring re-usable bags with them to the supermarket. That has happened to me just once since the two major supermarkets had announced their bans. It was actually at Coles in Bentleigh. It was a little bit awkward because just that morning I literally gave out I think 200 or 300 red bags with my name on them outside that same supermarket. So the supermarket staff did have a bit of a chuckle to themselves that I have literally got thousands of these bags but forgot to bring one. I have not forgotten since. You can walk into any supermarket and you can observe those changing habits, that behavioural change that will go a long way to protecting our environment.

It is important for a number of reasons, but especially because plastic production is expected to nearly quadruple by 2050. In the past Australians have used up to 10 million plastic bags every day, or 4 billion a year, and around 150 million of those ended up in our oceans and waterways, contributing to an estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped in the ocean every year. It has been estimated that the ocean surface waters alone could contain over 5 trillion plastic pieces weighing over 250 000 tonnes. Around 1.5 million tonnes of plastic are used in Australia, which is about 65 kilos of plastic per head of population, yet 90 per cent of plastic in Australia has never been recycled.

I think it is important that we are debating this legislation now, not just because of the need to ban lightweight single-use bags but because of course of the issue of recycling, in particular kerbside recycling, is very topical at the moment. Obviously we have an immediate problem to fix, and that is a situation where 14 or 15 local councils are sending their recyclable materials at the moment. But I think this is an opportunity for further behavioural change, for us as Victorians to do things very differently. I suppose up until 18 months ago—or two years ago, whenever it was—when China stopped taking our unsorted and in many cases contaminated recyclables we thought that we could fill up our yellow-topped recycling bins, as they are coloured in the City of Glen Eira where I live, and put them on the kerb and that was the job done, we had done our bit for the environment. But as we have found out, it is not that simple, and our behaviours, our habits, definitely need to change. We need to produce less waste in the first place.

Of course, as we heard in question time today in fact, Victoria needs a circular economy. Victoria needs a bolstered circular economy, and I am proud that the Andrews Labor government is facilitating that. Banning single-use lightweight plastic bags, as I said, is great on its own and will go a long way to protecting particularly our waterways, but we as individuals need to look at our own habits without us always having to introduce new laws or needing to regulate. If I can use one example which really does frustrate me at times, it is just how many people purchase plastic-bottled water when we live in a city and a state that actually has the best drinking water in the world on tap. I have never understood that. Members will see me walking around Parliament with my aluminium Batman drink bottle because I just do not buy plastic-bottled water. I think that there are simple ways that we can reduce our waste.

The government’s $135 million investment in ensuring the sustainability of the recycling industry in Victoria also includes education and spreading that message. I think that is going to be very important. We have got an immediate problem to fix at the moment, but more broadly it is an issue that all Victorians from all walks of life need to take some responsibility for and need to change our own habits and behaviours on.

This intervention I just mentioned will bolster the capacity of the recycling sector, and it invests in Victoria’s circular economy. I might run through some examples of that in a moment, but I should also mention that this government is creating its own circular economy policy and action plan which will be released late in 2019. But if I can just mention maybe one example on that that really goes to the issue of organic waste materials, part of that $135 million investment has been into, for example, a composting facility in Dandenong South because this government of course has been facilitating a movement from people using their green bins for garden and lawn cuttings to using their green bins for food waste as well. In fact the City of Glen Eira I think was one of the first councils to sign up to this new arrangement. The City of Glen Eira, in my electorate, actually offers a free kitchen caddy for food scraps, where people can then dispose of food waste in their green bins. That is then sent to that Dandenong South facility and is turned into compost that is sent to farms, parks and gardens.

Organic waste accounts for around 42 per cent of waste in Victoria. In the City of Glen Eira for some reason it is higher; it is around 50 per cent, or almost 31 000 tonnes of garbage. Auditing found around half of that to be food waste—around 300 tonnes per week—and we all know the very harmful effects to the environment of having that sort of waste in our landfills.

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (16:30): I support banning plastic bags. There is actually no debate here. It is something we should have done a long time ago, and I think we can do a lot more than just banning plastic bags. In fact I think it is good that as a community we are already talking with our feet and we are seeing that community members and shoppers are taking bags with them to go into supermarkets. It is just a cultural shift; that is simply all it is. And that is my point about doing more. Coming off a farm and living in the country, it is quite natural for me to never use a bin liner. It is just not something we have ever really done, because you wash the bin when you empty it and you put the scraps in a scrap bin to take to the chooks and the pigs and you put the meat in separately so you can give it to the dogs. I would never dream of not doing it that way; it is just how we live our life. We would also never turn the dishwasher on unless it was full because we do not waste water. So it is the sort of concepts that are natural.

I might be getting old but I can clearly remember grocery shopping and brown paper bags. There was a time not so long ago that we did not have plastic bags. It has actually always amused—no, that is not the right word—astounded me, amazed me. It is probably more concerning now that we understand what has actually happened with plastic getting into the environment. But as I have gotten older I have watched things like biscuits getting more and more plastic inserts inside the packets. Once upon a time they were not there and if a biscuit was broken, it was not a big deal—and apples, oranges, mandarins and bananas did not all have little stickers on them. I do not want to increase costs to producers, but I question why that is necessary. It is those small plastics that are actually getting into our ocean as well. So if we want to be serious, there is just so much more we can do.

Port Fairy, in my electorate, has actually been plastic bag free for 10 years. I will give credit to a lady by the name of Genevieve Grant who led that charge. That was 10 years ago. At the Port Fairy school fair they sell a great coffee and make quite a lot of money out of that, and nobody even thinks that it is going to be in a disposable cup. They are all in ceramic cups and the parents and community members wash the cups, and it works normally. It is quite a logical process when you think about it. We all got a little bit carried away with our polystyrene cups and our plastic and thinking that we could just throw it away.

I remember when I did my Nuffield scholarship and was very fortunate to be able to travel around the world and look at food policy and all sorts of aspects of where we will go in the future when it comes to food. I happened to be on the Mediterranean, and I was absolutely shocked because the Mediterranean—a bit of trivia here—actually only empties the water once every 100 years. So every droplet comes in and it is 100 years before it is actually expelled. The amount of plastic bags that were floating around the beautiful yachts was extraordinary. I was shocked. In Australia we have been quite fortunate in the way we have sort of taught people to dispose of litter properly, but it really stood out to me—it is not only about hiding litter, it is about not producing litter.

That is where I think we should have a real campaign as a community. We have done well with plastic bags. This is a community movement that has ended up banning plastic bags, and a community movement of actually making sure corporations start to think about whether they need to put two layers of plastic around things. I bought a packet of Dove soap the other day, and it was plastic upon plastic. It was impossible to get into the two bars of soap. It is frustrating. I mean, we do not need it. Why are we doing it? A box was fine. It did not need plastic around the box as well. There are so many ways that we as community members can put pressure on corporations to actually think harder about what plastic gets put around. I know it prevents damage and spoiling from weather et cetera, but we can do it because we have done it in the past and it worked well 30 or 40 years ago.

I do want to mention that this plastic ban will be a challenge. I was in the Salvos the other day. My daughter and I like to do op-shopping—her more than me because she is a skinny little thing and can pick up better clothes than I can—but I was talking to the Salvos. I took some of my bags in to help them out. They were quite concerned about this change. They asked, ‘Will we be able to bring re-used plastic bags in? Will you and I be able to take plastic bags that we have bought and have too many of, and will they be able to use it?’. They are quite concerned, so we do need to make sure that we support people through this change. I think we are doing that quite well. I actually want to give a plug to Leanne, who manages the Salvos in Warrnambool and does a fantastic job. I met her the other day and clearly that operation is a wonderful contributor to our community. So well done to you, Leanne, for what you do there.

I think the other thing we need to consider with environmental management is actually recognising that we can do more. Waste to energy—I was at a meeting the other day and there are some gentlemen in my community who are absolutely passionate about really thinking hard about what Europe is doing. I have seen it overseas as part of that scholarship that I mentioned before. Waste to energy is something that we really do need to consider. In parts of the world like south-west Victoria, we now have a crisis because the Andrews Labor government has ignored the fact that five years ago we knew China was going to ban plastics, and it gave them $13 million 18 months ago as a bandaid solution to get the pressure off the story. Today we hear $11 million is being given to 78 councils. I think it is about $140 000 each, so it is going to give them a two-month reprieve. That is not the answer. The answer is actually getting behind some projects like waste to energy.

But government, I think, has a role to play in coordinating the rubbish in an area so that it is viable. We have litter on the forest floors as well that can feed into these projects, but we need to make sure that government plays a role in ensuring that all of the councils cooperate, and that makes the projects viable. We have got investors ready to go, so it can actually be done quite effectively.

I also want to talk about how important this plastic ban is to our beaches. We have got a group called Beach Patrol 3280, which is the postcode for Warrnambool, and 3284, which is the postcode for Port Fairy. You all know how beautiful our beaches are right around South-West Coast, so it is so important that we make sure that plastic on our beaches is picked up. I will keep coming back to: it should not be there in the first place. But I want to give a shout-out to the Beach Patrol people and Good Will Nurdle Hunting, who have done an extraordinary job cleaning up our beaches and raising awareness, because that is where we really have to go harder. When you talk to the 15-year-olds who say, ‘Yeah, I really care about the environment’ I think we have got to say, ‘Well, prove it. Come on, guys—really think through what we can do better and remember to take your plastic bags’. It is easy to pay 15 cents but it is harder to actually take the bags from the car and actually walk in and put them back in the car after you have unpacked the groceries. Really put some pressure on people to think about how they can do better.

So I am proud to support this bill here today. I am disappointed that the government have had five years to get their act together, and that recycling that we as a community have been putting a huge effort into over the last 20 years at least—what I think most of us as community members did not know—was actually going offshore to China and we were not dealing with it ourselves. It is even more disappointing to learn that the government had five years notice. With five years notice there is really no excuse for recycling going into the tip today. It is even more disgusting that the government are charging the bin tax when that is going into the tip and not into recycling. There is $370 million-odd we heard in question time today that is available. It was $540 million or something, so the government has had the time. They have put some of that money into a website for the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, so that is not helping the environment.

So again I support the banning of plastic bags. As I say, there is absolutely no debate—this is what the community have been asking us to do, and the future of the environment is just too important to ignore. The community are ready for change and they have shown us that by speaking with their feet and going to supermarkets armed with their bags ready to go. They are saying this, I feel, every single day. Certainly in my office I get emails every single day about the importance of the environment. There is no debate that it is absolutely critical that we are here supporting the environment, and I am very proud to be here today supporting this ban for the benefit of the environment, the benefit of my grandchildren—one and a bit—and I am sure my great-grandchildren into the future. So it is many, many generations.

As a farmer it was always at the forefront of our minds—working with the environment. Anyone who tried to work against it was crucified by the environment. So the environment is king and we all know that every single day we get up, we make sure—or we should—that we respect the environment. It is much smarter than we will ever be as human beings, and all we can do is understand that we do have an impact here but we can work with that impact and make sure that we are constantly researching better ways to work with the environment, not against it. So I finish on the note that I support banning plastic bags.

Mr FREGON (Mount Waverley) (16:40): I rise to also speak on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019. The main purpose of this bill before us, as everyone has stated, is to introduce a ban on lightweight single-use plastic shopping bags. It is good to see that we have support from both sides of the house. Common sense is sometimes common.

Most of us could not imagine a world where we do not utilise the benefits of plastic. It is light, it is inexpensive, it protects and preserves, and it is now fundamental to our modern lives. It is used in everything from bubble wrap to prosthetic limbs, in toys to heavy industry. Even trains on our own Glen Waverley line are now travelling over plastic recycled sleepers made here in Victoria when they go through Richmond station. That said, with the abundant availability of plastic, we find ourselves all too quick to overuse and throw away this resource. Our world is filled with single-use plastic items, and we use them momentarily, but they can take hundreds of years to break down. So the more we throw away, the more problems we as a society are making for ourselves. Reducing the amount of these bags, as this bill does, therefore reduces this problem.

We have already seen the effects we can expect from this bill having seen the Coles and Woolworths changes last year. Over 12 months ago these bags that will now be banned were removed from two of our major supermarkets, and whilst I am still trying to remind myself to remove bags from under the sink and put them in the car—which I am working on—it is good to see some of my colleagues here are ahead of me. We need to bring these re-usable bags with us, and I need to put them in my car to go to my local supermarket down at Pinewood or Hamilton Place. In fact I can also thank the minister and this bill for reminding me to do that.

The bill we are debating today brings us to an important milestone in the ongoing process of tackling problematic plastics in our environment. It is one step of many along a path but an important step for our natural environment. The ban builds on the overwhelming support from our community, shown by the uptake of the use of re-usable plastic bags, and assists us in moving forward towards more sustainable alternatives. Since last July as I go to buy milk, bread or whatever I find myself considering the environment just a little bit more because of the fact that we are using these bags. I also see this effect on the parents and children at schools that I visit in Mount Waverley. Recently I spoke to children at Holy Family Primary School and was pleased to see their strong interest in environmental matters and issues. Also our own Parliament has been running a role-play on banning plastic bags with primary school children in this very chamber. These kids are growing up with environmental issues and concerns front and centre of their thinking. On a recent trip to Palm Cove my own daughter argued that we had to go snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef because she was concerned that it may not be the same the next time we had the chance to go. So our kids are growing up with these environmental issues very much in their minds.

Our government has worked closely with Victorian communities and businesses during the development of this plastic bag ban. The buy-in that we see from the public is a testament to that consultation and buy-in from the public. We as a state are not alone in this ban. Learning from the experience of other jurisdictions both in Australia and overseas has brought us here today with a ban that will produce the right outcomes for Victoria.

Some retailers in Victoria, as I have mentioned before, have already stopped providing lightweight single-use plastic bags, and I think it is fair to give them a shout-out for doing what they have done. The ban will not only reduce plastic pollution but assist with the health of our environment. This ban, not unlike the changes from retailers last year, builds awareness and shows the Victorian public that their government is moving to a more sustainable Victoria. We must encourage avoidance and re-use at all times, and in this way this bill is another step towards a circular economy.

The focus on a circular economy and its principles is being shown by our work in developing a circular economic policy and action plan for Victoria to be released later this year. We all want to see minimisation of waste and to know that we are making the most of our resources. Moving to a more circular economy will grow the economy, increase jobs and reduce impacts on the environment. In Mount Waverley we have a local men’s shed that is working on a re-use and recycle plan. This is something I am keen to see in practice. Not only does this project assist with the recycling of useful goods but also, as does all the work they do at the shed, it assists greatly with the mental health and social inclusion of our senior men in our community. So a big shout-out to Greg and all the blokes down at the shed.

The ban, once in place, will remove these single-use bags from our recycling bins, and by doing this will assist in the ease of recycling companies to sort and reprocess during recycling. We are joining the list of other states that have also banned these plastic bags and have aligned our approach with that taken in these other jurisdictions. This will ensure consistency for retailers and suppliers and therefore make the adoption of this change easier for those who operate in a national market.

It is no surprise that this ban causes a change for some retailers. This has been considered, and so to ensure our retailers and small businesses are ready for the ban, the government has engaged the National Retail Association, which will deliver an education and engagement program over the next year. Drawing on their years of experience in the sector, the National Retail Association will provide face-to-face engagement with stakeholders in a program which will encourage long-term sustainable packaging solutions. This implementation program, like others that they have run in Queensland and Western Australia, will also assist in promoting the ban to consumers.

Sustainability Victoria states that the government received over 8000 submissions in three months of public consultation on plastic pollution in 2017–18. From this we can clearly state that the Victorian community takes the issue of plastic pollution seriously. From this process we have received an enormous show of support for a ban on lightweight plastic shopping bags, with more than 96 per cent of submissions received supporting a ban. That is a fairly staggering number of people who agree on one thing.

We also heard that the Victorian community wants more action on plastic pollution. It is clear from public responses that the public wants to see more work in this space, and that is exactly what this government is delivering. Not only are we committed to decreasing plastic pollution entering our environment, as this bill does, but we do so knowing the Victorian public are with us. I have no doubt that we are tackling this problem head-on, and I thank the minister for not only this bill but the quantity of work we are seeing in this area moving us to a circular economy. I note that the inquiry into recycling and waste management will be reporting its findings towards the end of this year, and I look forward to reading through that report and seeing where we go.

We need to move away from a throwaway mentality. I know when my kids’ school asked parents to use less wrapping for school lunches, this was not necessarily simple for some, like me. For my part, I am not totally there yet—I still find this awkward—but it is the right way to go, and those of us who are a little recalcitrant in this area and find it a bit difficult have to change with the times for the good of our environment. It is another example of how much we are relying on plastics, but it reminds me that we need to think about where it goes once we have used it.

Plastic is not the bad guy in this debate, but we need to be aware of the problems that its usage and our reliance on it causes. Our government is aware that we must utilise these benefits without compromising the Victorian environment. We need to align our systems around a common vision. So where we can eliminate plastic we do not need and instead use sustainable alternatives, we should do that. We should support innovation in plastic production where the full life of the plastic is considered and is part of the manufacturing decision-making.

This way we can continue on the path that we are on so that what we make continues to be used and never becomes waste or pollution. Our government is committed to developing and implementing policies that will reduce plastic waste and transition us to a state with a circular economy. We are facing challenges in our recycling industry. Our government is tackling these challenges head on: reducing plastic pollution with a $34.9 million package of recycling reforms in the 2019–20 budget and assisting our councils with $11.3 million to provide immediate financial relief and allow them to invest in infrastructure to improve the quality of our recycling system. This bill delivers to Victoria what we have been hearing loudly and clearly from 96 per cent of Victorians or more: people want this ban. They want these plastic bags out of the shops and out from under the sink, and now they will be gone. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms BLANDTHORN (Pascoe Vale) (16:50): In UN News, in an article titled ‘World must unite against “preventable tragedy” of ocean pollution: UN chief’, the UN chief said:

‘The oceans make our blue planet unique in our solar system—and not just visually,’ he said adding that they help regulate ‘the global climate and are the ultimate source of the water that sustains all life on Earth, from coral reefs to snow-covered mountains, from tropical rain forests to mighty rivers, and even deserts.’

… ‘the ability of the oceans to provide their essential services is being threatened by climate change, pollution and unsustainable use.’

Plastic pollution alone is reeking tremendous havoc on the marine resources of the world …

Eighty per cent of all pollution in the sea comes from land, including some eight million tons of plastic waste each year, that have cost the lives of one million seabirds and 100 000 marine mammals. Moreover, it causes $8 billion in damage annually to marine ecosystems.

Pollution, said Mr. Guterres, ‘chokes waterways, harms communities that depend on fishing and tourism, kills turtles and birds, whales and dolphins, and finds its way to the most remote areas of the planet and throughout the food chain on which we ultimately rely.’

‘Unless we change course, plastic waste could soon outweigh all the fish in the oceans,’ Mr. Guterres added.

Thank you, Acting Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this very important bill. When we think about plastic pollution it is important to note that more than 9 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced since the 1950s. It is light, it is inexpensive and it is cheaper than other materials from which we make the things that we ultimately rely on. It is also very durable: it lasts for up to thousands of years. And our continued reliance on disposable and single-use plastic is overwhelming our environment.

A journal article in Environmental Politics titled ‘Doing away with plastic shopping bags: international patterns of norm emergence and policy implementation’, says that:

Beyond energy and climate impacts, the persistence of plastic bags in the environment has been a particular problem. Plastic bags can take up to 1000 years to break down … creating problems on a number of fronts. First, they contribute to unsightly litter in public spaces, exacerbated by their light weight and parachute-shaped design which makes them travel easily through the air and in waterways. Second, they pose a public health and safety threat because they can act as breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes and can clog sewers and storm-water drains. Third, they pose threats to wildlife that may become entangled in them or inadvertently eat them. Finally, when they do ultimately break down, they do not biodegrade; instead they photodegrade—meaning that they break down into smaller and smaller pieces. These small pieces can be consumed by wildlife …

Single-use plastic items have become commonplace in our society, yet they can take hundreds of years to break up in the environment. This plastic pollution is affecting our land, it is affecting our waterways and it is affecting our oceans. Specifically, plastic bag litter is significantly affecting wildlife in the marine environment. Tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals and turtles are killed every year from plastic bag litter as they often mistake plastic bags for food such as jellyfish. Once ingested the plastic cannot be digested or passed by an animal, so it stays in the gut. Indeed seabirds can have a surprising amount of plastic in their gut. A Conversation article, ‘Seabirds are eating plastic litter in our oceans—but not only where you’d expect’ found:

Working on islands off Australia, we have found birds with plastics making up 8% of their body weight. Imagine a person weighing 62 kg having almost 5 kg of plastic in their digestive tract. And then think about how large that lump would be, given that many types of plastic are designed to be as lightweight as possible.

The more plastic a seabird encounters, the more it tends to eat, which means that one of the best predictors of the amount of plastic in a seabird’s gut is the concentration of ocean plastic in the region where it lives. This finding points the way to a solution: reducing the amount of plastic that goes into the ocean would directly reduce the amount that seabirds (and other wildlife) accidentally eat.

Indeed that is what this bill is about. Because it takes so long for plastic to break down, it is also important to note that once an animal dies and decays after ingesting the plastic, the plastic is then freed back into the marine environment to carry on killing other wildlife. It continues and it continues. When plastic and so-called biodegradable plastic bags do break down, they simply break into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic, making every size of particle a problem from the plastic bags that are filling up the stomachs of whales and turtles to the smaller shreds that end up killing young seabirds, stuffed into them by their desperate parents, to the microplastics that are recognised by the Environment Protection Authority as an emerging pollutant of concern and the nanoparticles that are being ingested. When plastic waste ends up in the environment it becomes increasingly problematic to manage. Reducing the number of plastic bags we are using is an important part of addressing the overall problem of plastic pollution in Victoria.

Much of Australia, indeed the world, is ahead of us in this regard. According to the United Nations Environment Programme up to 5 trillion plastic bags are consumed each year. On 20 July Panama became the latest to ban single-use plastic bags, and more than 90 countries have similar restrictions. Tanzania and New Zealand recently also implemented such bans and another 36 regulate them with levies and fees. Bans on plastic bags are widely spread in Africa. Throughout the world people recognise that this is a problem, and here in Victoria, that is why this bill is so important. It will legislate a ban on lightweight single-use plastic shopping bags in Victoria. It will apply to bags being provided at retail outlets, including supermarkets, fashion boutiques, fast-food outlets, convenience stores and service stations. The ban will encourage greater uptake of re-usable bags, building on the momentum that has been growing in our communities towards embracing more sustainable bag alternatives.

In my own community of Pascoe Vale customers are already taking their re-usable bags to the shops in droves. Indeed the demand for our shopping bags throughout campaigning over the last year was particularly strong. People want to use re-usable bags. We are an electorate that is passionate about doing our bit to reduce plastic pollution. I would like to particularly commend the Friends of Merri Creek, the Friends of Moonee Ponds Creek and the Friends of Edgars Creek, who have also advocated very strongly in our community for minimising the plastic waste going into our local waterways.

The bill bans the provision of all lightweight plastic shopping bags made in whole or in part of plastic where any part of the bag has a thickness of 35 microns or less. It will include biodegradable, degradable and compostable plastic bags, as we know they all have comparable impacts on the environment. The legislation also prohibits retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers from providing false or misleading information about the composition of a banned plastic bag or where a bag is banned. This includes the omission of information that a retailer, wholesaler or manufacturer should reasonably know about a bag’s composition or whether it is in fact a banned or exempt plastic bag.

In talking about retailers banning bags, I would like to take a moment to recognise the importance of not bagging the staff who are informing people of the banning of bags. As someone who represented workers in the retail industry and workers who have long supported the use of re-usable bags but have often encountered customers who may not always accept that the staff are sometimes the messengers and that change can be difficult, but that customers are getting used to taking their bags from home or buying re-usable ones, I send a friendly reminder not to take out their frustrations on the staff that are serving them. Perhaps a matter that is not as commonly talked about when using re-usable bags in shops is actually making sure that the bags that we are asking staff to put things into are clean. Our union members would report to us that it was commonplace for people to turn up with their re-usable bags full of last week’s shopping or even perhaps with footy training dirt in the bottom of their bags. So in implementing this really important initiative it is important that we do not bag the staff who are the messengers and that we respect them when they are filling the re-usable bags for us.

This is a really important bill. It is one that goes to the heart of the welfare of animals in our community and in our society. It is a bill that goes straight to the heart of protecting our environment in the long term. I am very pleased to commend this bill to the house.

Mr NORTHE (Morwell) (16:59): It gives me pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019, a very newsworthy piece of legislation at the moment, particularly with much of the media commentary around recycling and the use of materials within Victoria and Australia and the challenges we have at the moment in terms of recycling. The legislation itself introduces a ban on all single-use lightweight plastic shopping bags—shopping bags with a thickness of 35 microns or less will be banned. The types of bags include degradable, biodegradable and compostable plastic bags. The ban will apply to those bags that are being provided at retail outlets, including supermarkets, fashion boutiques, service stations, convenience stores and fast-food outlets. The bill also makes some technical amendments, but the focus of my contribution will be on the banning of the single-use plastic shopping bags.

As many members have said in their contributions, it is a positive thing to ensure that we minimise the use of plastic bags in our communities and in society. We know that far too often we have all observed and witnessed many stories where impacts upon the environment and animals and wildlife occur and are unsightly on top of that. It is something that we should be looking to minimise and reduce, and this bill does exactly that.

The ban, which applies to a number of different retail outlets, comes into effect, as I understand it, in early November. A fine will apply if there is a breach of the rules. I think it is really important that the information gets out to the public and to our retailers to ensure that they are acutely aware of what the rules and the legislation actually are. As I say, I think it is a positive move, it is a positive step, and it is incumbent upon the government and relevant departments and agencies to ensure that people are aware of the rules. The member for Pascoe Vale quite rightly just pointed out that the people who are working in those environments are the ones who will invariably have to advise consumers of the new legislation, and of course the last thing we want to see is customers being upset when they are not able to be provided with plastic bags because it will be against the law.

I guess one concern I do have—I normally use some independent supermarkets to do my shopping—is that if they do have a stockpile of bags that will not comply post 1 November, are there any avenues through which they can dispose of them legally and without too much cost and without too much harm to the environment? That is certainly something that I think needs to be considered.

Also I note that in terms of the legislation it does not apply to the bags where people invariably place their fruit and vegetables—the small plastic bags. It is an interesting point because just recently I had the pleasure to be at Traralgon College where the year 8 students were running an entrepreneurial program. One of the issues that they were trying to deal with or provide solutions to was this very issue of how we find other options rather than using plastic bags for fruit and vegetables in supermarkets. I know the students involved in that came up against some real challenges, and that, particularly talking to the major supermarket retailers, it was a really difficult conundrum. One would have to be cynical in suggesting that it may be a cost issue more than an environment issue when implementing any new strategy. Hopefully into the future and post this legislation being passed we do find new measures and we do find solutions for plastic bags that are used for fruit and vegetables and we find better solutions like we are finding with this at the moment.

In terms of the National Retail Association, as I understand it, they are going to be rolling out an educational program for all retailers. Again, it is important from a rural and regional perspective that all of those who fall under the banner of convenience stores—fish and chip shops, petrol stations, supermarkets, fashion shops et cetera—are across this legislation in detail by making sure that a strong marketing campaign is in place to ensure that those businesses and indeed their consumers are acutely aware of these new laws that are in place.

I will not take too much more time other than to say this is a sensible piece of legislation. Abolishing plastic shopping bags of this particular nature is a sensible thing to do. I know there is not too much time before the legislation is enacted, so it is important that we as a community, as businesses and as shoppers know the rules when they come into place. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms HALL (Footscray) (17:05): I am very pleased today to speak in support of the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019. I strongly support this bill, introducing a ban on all single-use lightweight plastic shopping bags with a thickness of 35 microns or less, including degradable, biodegradable and compostable bags. Plastic and microplastics are a huge threat to our environment and to our wildlife, and this includes the degradable, biodegradable and compostable bags. I spent Clean Up Australia Day this year in March in a kayak on the Maribyrnong River. Even though it was a beautiful sunny day spent with passionate and committed local residents cleaning up the river, I could not completely enjoy it because I was horrified. We were there to clean up the river, and on that day alone we collected nearly 300 kilograms of rubbish, most of it plastic waste, including single-use plastic bags.

There are many groups involved in reducing plastic waste in the electorate of Footscray, and I would like to begin my contribution by acknowledging those groups and thanking them for everything they do each and every day to reduce plastic waste in our community. The Footscray Rubbish Runners are a terrific group of people who get out for a run—I think it is monthly. They come together from across Footscray, they run on a different route each time they get together and they collect rubbish. I would also like to acknowledge the Footscray Riverside Action Group, who for many years now have been strong advocates for cleaning up the Maribyrnong River and collecting plastic waste in particular.

There are many alternatives to single-use plastic bags, including boomerang bags. These are re-usable cloth bags made out of recycled fabrics by volunteers who get together at neighbourhood houses and community centres to make them, and then they distribute them to retailers within the Footscray electorate for people to use when they forget their plastic bags at the supermarket. I would like to acknowledge two groups that make these bags: the Maribyrnong Boomerang Bags and the Braybrook community centre. Thank you for everything you do in our community to reduce reliance on plastic bags.

But of course the government has a very important role, and this bill is an important milestone in protecting our natural resources and public amenity. This bill will apply to bags provided at retail outlets, including supermarkets, fast-food outlets, convenience stores, service stations and fashion boutiques. We talk a lot about corporate responsibility, especially regarding the environment and this planet we share, and this ban prevents retailers from providing shoppers with a plastic bag that has been banned. It will also prevent retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers from providing false or misleading information about the composition of a banned plastic bag. We have worked closely with the Victorian business and consumer communities, and we have studied other states where similar bans have been implemented. This has allowed us to design a ban that is nationally consistent for the benefit of suppliers and retailers and will produce excellent outcomes for Victoria.

Since March this year the National Retail Association has been engaging with retailers to help prepare them for this transition. Our community consultation has been extensive and shaped our goals and time lines accordingly. The three-month public consultation attracted an overwhelming response of more than 8000 individual submissions, and more than 96 per cent of those were supporting a ban. Victoria has spoken and we have listened. Seventy-six per cent of Victorians already take re-usable bags with them when they go shopping, and to any residents of Footscray who would like to collect a re-usable bag, if you are on the way to the Footscray market, please drop by my office and collect a re-usable bag that you can take with you.

Because so many Victorians are taking re-usable bags to the shops with them, we may not notice the ban when it is implemented, but we will notice it when we look at our waterways and see the improvements to our wildlife, because the truth is we use a lot of plastic bags. Australians have used up to 10 million plastic bags a day, or 4 billion every year. Approximately 150 million of these end up in our oceans and our waterways, including my community’s treasured Maribyrnong River, contributing an estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped into the ocean each year. This plastic does not just go away; it usually degrades into microplastics, creating further pollution—pollution that is harder to collect—or is eaten by unsuspecting wildlife. Biodegradable bags are not exempt from these problems, and compostable bags only break down in specific conditions. They are not the solution either. To reduce the impact of plastic waste throughout Victoria we just have to use less plastic.

We have to think about our actions both as individuals and as a government, and the recycled plastic sleepers used by Metro Trains Melbourne and V/Line trains is an excellent example of doing just that. The sleepers are made out of polystyrene and agricultural plastic waste that would otherwise go to landfill, including cotton bale wrap and vineyard covers. The environmental benefits do not end there. These sleepers require significantly less energy to manufacture compared to timber, concrete or steel alternatives. They are made from an existing and durable resource that would otherwise go to waste, and they can be recycled at the end of their life span. This prevents the further extraction of oil, which is essential to the production of most plastics, which are only used once. This is a fantastic example of the circular economy working well, and I look forward to the government releasing its policy soon on the circular economy. I am very proud that this government has supported this program with railway sleepers, investing $630 000 to support this fantastic initiative.

The plastic bag ban will reduce plastic pollution, build awareness of the issue and encourage Victorians to make re-usable shopping bags a regular part of life. Within Footscray l have recently met with representatives of an organisation called PlaSTEAMed, another Victorian company looking to revolutionise the way we think about and use plastics. PlaSTEAMed is setting up a single-use plastics recycling project starting at Footscray City Primary School, where people will be able to bring along plastic bottles, such as water bottles, and they will go through the recycling process, essentially being melted down and converted into something that can be re-used by the school community—for example, in 3D printing. This is a great way that our community is demonstrating leadership, and I am very proud to be part of a government that is supporting this kind of leadership and innovation in its policies.

Whether it is as individuals or as a government, we must do whatever we can and play whatever role we can to protect our environment and our natural resources. Even an action as simple as remembering to take your canvas bag to the supermarket can have a flow-on effect of incalculable measure. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (17:14): I rise to make a contribution on this important piece of legislation. We are all aware of this issue. I think it has been on our agendas for a very long time, in particular out in our communities and clearly at a government level. I believe there is a strong desire in the broader community to deal with the issue of plastic bags in our environment. This bill will prohibit the provision of certain plastic bags by retailers and false and misleading information relating to plastic bags, and it will also make a range of other consequential amendments to the main act.

It is worth noting the definition of ‘banned plastic bag’, as set out in clause 4 of the bill. This term means a bag, other than an exempt plastic bag, with handles, and that comprises, either wholly or in part, plastic, whether or not that plastic is biodegradable, degradable or compostable and has a thickness of 35 micrometres or less at any part of the bag. The definition includes biodegradable, degradable and compostable bags, but the inclusion of these bags is not to limit the scope but rather to avoid the sort of confusion that is likely to occur otherwise. The definition allows for specific types of bags to be prescribed as banned plastic bags where a need for certainty might arise in the future.

Plastic has become an indispensable part of our modern-day life. We rely on it in so many ways. Obviously shopping is one of those very obvious activities where we have been provided with plastic bags for our own convenience for so many years. We have heard many accounts of how people have gradually changed their behaviour. The kitchen is just another place where the use of plastic is so prevalent, whether it be our garbage bags, our compost bags or our Glad wrap to cover and help preserve food or to wrap lunches.

It is interesting to reflect on how humans can change their behaviour. We have seen how effective campaigns can be to change people’s behaviour. That has been extraordinarily evident with the Quit campaign. The banning of plastic bags has been something discussed for many years and has been a long time coming to Victoria. This is particularly so when one considers that they banned plastic bags in Bangladesh some 25 years ago. Other states and territories are also on board.

So how are people coping with the gradual removal? And how will they cope with the sudden removal when this legislation is enacted? One of the things that I have noticed over the years is that people are certainly bringing their own bags in large numbers to the supermarket. When you walk through a supermarket car park and look in the back seats of people’s cars, or indeed just about anywhere, there are supermarket bags tucked on the back seat or behind the front seats. I think people are becoming very aware of the need to be ready for that quick stop or the big supermarket shop.

Community groups in my electorate for several years have been selling Boomerang Bags. I have to say that I thought they were peculiar to my electorate, but they are everywhere, very clearly, and for good reason. Community groups have been engaged in making them for a long time. They are free to pick up at a lot of independent supermarkets. The very name of them suggests that you are meant to take them back, but they are readily available to you.

Just last week in our local newspaper there was an article about a young woman who has opened the first zero waste shop in Shepparton. Ms Kelly Dreyer has been passionate for a long time about the issue of dealing with waste. She has three young children, and she was noticing just how much plastic was being used in her home. Having just recently opened the store she said she was delighted to see the number of people who are coming into the shop with their own jars, their own containers, to purchase food in bulk—food such as flowers, grains, nuts, seeds, teas, herbs spices and even breakfast cereals. People actually want better ways to do things, to manage the environmental challenges, and businesses such as these are really grasping the opportunity to tune into what people are looking for and to help them find a more environmentally friendly way of doing business.

We are told that this bill represents just one in a suite of proposals that the government is working on to reduce plastic pollution and move towards a more circular economy to deal with waste and encourage re-use and recovery of product. I think we have all seen some great stories, including the one I saw on television the other day where they are making railway sleepers in Mildura from plastic by-products. Those sorts of initiatives are out there, and it is great to see people wanting to adopt them. We had a large farm area covered in tyres at Numurkah over the course of the last few years, and it is only this year that all those tyres have been removed. Of course they present an opportunity for significant recycling in the making of other products.

We have been very slow, I think, in Australia to face the challenges of recycling. I recently felt quite ashamed when I was looking on television and saw an Indonesian village worker burning plastic, drawing it from a bale of disgusting rubbish that we in Australia had exported to that country. So we have not dealt with our own problem. We have been exporting it for years, and we have not even been doing that well. I think China has brought home to us very clearly recently, by stopping the import of our rubbish, the fact that we could not even be bothered to separate it satisfactorily. We could not be bothered to make sure that our rubbish was not contaminated with product that would prevent it being recycled. So we have really been blindsided by this issue, and we are now having to face a situation that is really critical out there in our communities. We are finding ourselves truly and literally in a mess.

In Shepparton at our home properties we have three garbage bins. This enables us to separate recyclables, green waste and rubbish. It has been an interesting journey. Greater Shepparton City Council introduced this several years ago to encourage that separation of waste product, and it was very successful. Of course they, like everyone, are faced with the issues around what we are going to do with our waste product at the moment, but that has led to people becoming much more aware. I know that people have become very engaged in separating their recyclables into the blue and their others into the green. Many now have very little rubbish in their actual rubbish bin, so I think that is a very pleasing outcome.

Waste and plastics in our waterways, we all know—and I have heard many of the other members speak about this—is a shocking problem. Out in my electorate it is similarly one, because we have two major rivers and various creeks. Of course people who are very dedicated to looking after them are constantly raising issues with me about the rubbish and waste that they find in our rivers. We know that causes a lot of damage to wildlife in our river systems and ultimately in the sea.

Several years ago I took a trip up to northern Queensland, a camping trip, and had a camp set up near Chilli Beach. This is a magnificent stretch of beach in northern Queensland, and when I walked out onto it I was horrified to see the amount of rubbish that had been deposited there all up and down the beach by passing boats and ships which were just disposing of their rubbish by throwing it overboard. A pristine, beautiful beach in northern Queensland was effectively a rubbish dump, and people were going back down with bags wanting to clean it up because they were truly horrified to see that such a thing could happen in such a remote place.

We need to address the issue of refunds on bottles and cans. I was listening to ABC radio in Albury just the other day, and apparently it is an offence for people in Victoria to take their cans and bottles over the border and collect refunds there, which sounds like a pretty extraordinary situation. It is best that there is a national approach to it, and the sooner the better.

I think we are now acutely aware that our environment is delicate and it is precious and that we have got to stop trashing it. We have been doing it for years, and it really must stop. I believe there is great support for a change of behaviour and for innovation in this area. I note that from the consultations that were undertaken in relation to this bill the government says that so many widely supported it, whether it be industry groups, environmental groups, consumers, local government or others. The appetite is certainly there. This is a start, but there is so much more to be done. I am pleased to support the bill before the house.

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (17:24): Australia must fast-track a circular economy. Turning waste into energy is critical, and the sooner we are able to deliver on this result, the better it will be to protect our communities from health risks, improve the environment and, hopefully as well, cut energy costs. This is a particularly crucial issue to my constituents. There have been fires in waste stockpiles in Coolaroo and Campbellfield. If you remember the Coolaroo fire of two years ago, it burnt for almost two weeks and sent toxic smoke plumes right across Melbourne—as far as St Kilda on some reports. We are now in a situation where China has forced this to a crisis point by their cutbacks to importing our waste. This is the issue that we are confronting.

The Andrews Labor government has taken a strong position to try and address these matters through the minister and also in the Parliament with an inquiry. It was really good to see that at the COAG meeting there was a coordinated approach and a united strategy for Australia to work towards banning recyclable waste being exported overseas. The ban, while it will not be immediate, will include all levels of government giving their environment ministers the role of figuring out a time frame for plastics, paper, metals and glass to be taken out of the broader waste system. This is a good national initiative and a good collaboration. I am sure the Australian public are delighted to see that we have this approach.

Because of the significance of this issue, particularly to my constituents, I have been looking internationally at what is the world’s best practice, what the options are that we have and particularly how technology can actually drive these initiatives. If you have a look at what they have done in Copenhagen, they have a giant incinerator there, and they are actually importing waste from the UK. Their argument, which will obviously have to be put to the test to make sure it stands up to scientific scrutiny, is that the steam that is emitted from this giant incinerator actually has less pollutants than the ambient air around Copenhagen.

If this can be proven and the science stacks up, I think that this is potentially at least one piece of technology that we could look at—as I said, there will be others from other places internationally as well—or examine and see whether we can actually turn this around and say, ‘Okay, instead of the waste being a liability, can this be turned into an asset, and can we actually then look at how we can harness the waste into energy and use it in that way? Do we have the ability to actually do that?’. If you have a look at what Copenhagen is trying to do, by 2025 this once grimy industrial city is aiming to be net carbon-neutral, meaning that it plans to generate more renewable energy than it consumes dirty energy. This is what they are attempting to do.

There was an interesting article in the New York Times earlier this year about why this matters. It goes to the issue that half of humanity now lives in cities and the vast share of planet-warming gases comes from cities, so the big fixes for climate change need to come from cities too. They are both a problem and a potential source of solutions. This is now where Australia is, because of the sets of circumstances beyond our control with what has happened with China and other countries saying they do not want to take our waste anymore. Can we turn adversity into an opportunity? Can we look at what needs to be done and how we deliver it? Of course this will have to happen over a long period of time—there will be short, medium and long-term strategies—but in the case of Copenhagen, which I do want to cite because I think it is worth examining, what they are trying to do is change people’s behaviour, which is also being addressed in this bill, from how people get around to how they heat their homes and how they treat their rubbish.

The city has already cut its emissions by 42 per cent from 2005 levels, mainly by moving away from using fossil fuels to generate heat and electricity. This is the critical point. If we can actually say, ‘Okay, we have all these councils; we have this waste. They are stuck trying to work out what happens if a company fails, closes its doors or faces a punitive response for being outside the law. What happens then? Can we look at how to best convert waste to energy?’. I think this is a model worth examining. I have actually scrutinised this, and we need to see the science to make sure that it stacks up and it is bulletproof. I just think that this is at least one example, and I know there are others internationally. The model would be to look at what is world’s best practice, what is fit for our purposes and what can be adapted. But it is an issue that concerns all of us, and I think that that is the critical point that needs to be addressed. If we have a look at this bill before the Parliament, this is another piece of legislation in a suite of reforms that is being put forward to address this ongoing problem.

We know that in Victoria the community supports action to cut out what has now been called the ‘plastic addiction’. During the three-month public consultation period the government received more than 8000 individual responses in overwhelming support of banning plastic bags. The Victorian community wants to see decisive action to reduce plastic pollution, and that is what this bill, as yet another piece of legislation in a whole suite of reforms, delivers. Seventy-six per cent of Victorians are already taking bags when shopping, so the change and the socialisation of this is occurring. That is positive. To put it into perspective, in the past Australians have used up to 10 million plastic bags every day. That is an extraordinary figure—that is 4 billion every year. We are creatures of habit. You can get into these habits. You just put your hand in the cupboard for the plastic bag, or you go and do the shopping and pull it off to wrap up things that do not even need it. Then that has a domino effect, and that is the behaviour we are trying to address.

About 150 million plastic bags end up in our oceans and waterways, contributing to an estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped into the ocean every year. This is unsustainable. Although the plastic is lightweight and low cost, it does not go away. It breaks into pieces and ends up in landfill or as litter and can cause long-term harm to the environment and wildlife. That is the chain reaction. How do we intervene? How do we address custom and practice? How do we switch to preventative action? How do we then address what people do with their waste? Then, longer term, can we have a strategy that turns that into energy, and can that be harnessed? Wouldn’t it be great to have cuts to energy bills for communities, particularly those where we are trying to bring the industries back? If we could get a coordinated strategy on that, I think it would be in the public interest. It would be good for the environment, it would help climate change issues, it would address the personal issue of feeling at least some satisfaction that the way we manage this is in the public interest and in the national interest and it could hopefully reduce the cost of power. I think that would really deliver the circular economy argument and help people so that their change of behaviour delivers a benefit to all of those areas: the environment, our personal lives and the cost of living. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr HALSE (Ringwood) (17:34): It is a delight to be back in this chamber today after a few weeks off and to hear the fine contributions of the members in this chamber. There have been a number of fine contributions from both sides of the house and one from the member for Broadmeadows just then.

I too have the issue that the member for Lara indicated, with a range of re-usable plastic bags that seem to sit in the back of my automobile. I am always in search of those. I would like to also note the contribution of the member for Footscray and the emphasis on the community’s desire to see this piece of legislation, this good piece of public policy, turned into law. So I rise to speak on this bill, the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019, which will introduce a ban on all single-use lightweight plastic shopping bags with a thickness of 35 microns or less, as my colleagues have noted.

This is a fantastic initiative, and it will go a long way towards reducing our overall plastic waste. I am sad to say it, but plastic pollution has become a global epidemic. As others have noted today the National Geographic magazine reported in June 2018 that of all the plastic ever produced on the planet, over 90 per cent has never been recycled. That is an alarming statistic. Every year thousands of tonnes of that unrecycled plastic waste enters our aquatic ecosystems, choking marine life, affecting our oceans and creating environmental catastrophes like the Pacific trash vortex. This is a natural disaster that alone should be cause for a global emergency.

The best scientific estimates of this issue suggest that the Pacific trash vortex covers an area, astonishingly, of somewhere between 700 000 square kilometres and 15 million square kilometres. That would mean that this largely plastic-filled mass could potentially be nearly the size of the state of Russia. It is one pelagic concentration of plastic and chemical sludge. While that single blight on a global scale should be cause for concern, it is a metaphorical drop in the ocean of plastic waste, with an estimated 5 trillion plastic pieces circulating in our global waterways collectively weighing over 250 000 tonnes.

Recently the United Nations Ocean Conference has estimated that the oceans might contain more weight in plastic than fish by the year 2050. Again this is an alarming projection. While we are not the only contributors to this looming ecological disaster, our nation and our state has certainly been contributing to this overall problem. There is now approximately 65 kilograms of plastic for every Australian.

It is not all bad. After all, plastics do form an essential part of our life and are essential to a number of everyday items in packaging and transport and the health care, construction and electronics industries. However, the same does not apply to single-use plastic bags. Even bags that are biodegradable, as my colleagues have noted, will only break down in certain composting conditions. They take a very long time to break down.

The harm caused by plastic bags to ocean marine life, to local ecosystems, to waterways and to native flora and fauna can be enormous. Indeed when plastics do break down via photo-degeneration, microplastics and other harmful chemicals are increasingly entering our food chains, and this is something that is particularly concerning. Given that plastic waste represents around 10 per cent of all waste disposed of to landfill in Victoria and a large amount of plastic comes from these single-use plastic bags, this bill will go a long way towards reducing our overall waste footprint.

This bill is another example of the Andrews Labor government delivering positive outcomes for Victoria’s natural environments and ecosystems. The ban will remove single-use plastic bags from retail outlets like supermarkets, fashion boutiques, fast-food outlets, convenience stores and service stations. It also prohibits retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers from providing false or misleading information about the composition of a banned plastic bag.

But this has not been a top-down process or a top-down decision. The state government has worked closely with key stakeholders, retailers and suppliers to inform them, to design this policy and to give them time for its implementation. The National Retail Association has worked hard to support thousands of small to medium businesses across Victoria to plan for and adapt to this important change. We have also listened to the Victorian people, and my colleagues have cited statistics about the support for this in the wider community. Victorians have made their overwhelming support of this ban known to this government and to local MPs, and in fact in the district of Ringwood we have had significant support for this piece of legislation. Not only have we listened to the Victorian people, but we have also gone through a period of consultation and received more than 8000 individual responses. Again an overwhelming number of those responses support the banning of plastic bags. This vocal support is consistent with consumer behaviour as we seek to reduce our waste and as we seek to use re-usable bags and potentially to use no bags as we shop, as we know that 76 per cent of Victorians are already taking re-usable bags to the shops. In fact many MPs in this chamber have bags with their names and faces all over them.

This local support is consistent with consumer behaviour, and it makes this project a great piece of public policy. It is good for government, it is good for local businesses, it is good for consumers and it is good for our planet; in fact there is very little it is not good for. It is a smart reform, and I do commend this bill to the house. I would like to say to those in Ringwood that have lobbied me so significantly on this issue that it is good that this bill today is before the chamber and that I look forward to getting to Ringwood Lake soon again to do our annual Ringwood Lake plastic bag clean-up.

Mr CHEESEMAN (South Barwon) (17:43): It is with some pleasure that I rise today to speak on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019. I would like to put this bill into the context of the journey that we as a society have undertaken for the last 20 years. I can strongly recall the early efforts of the Bracks Labor government that was elected in 1999. At that point in time I was fortunate to be a councillor with the City of Ballarat and indeed was fortunate to be a director of the Central Highlands waste management group.

A network of these groups was set up by the Victorian government in partnership with local government throughout Victoria to better manage our waste management system, right from educating and informing the community about how we as a society should deal with waste to how we manage our landfills and how we of course implement a sustainable waste management program. In the time I was on that body as a councillor representing the City of Ballarat we introduced initially the two-lid system, where we had a general waste bin and certainly in the context of the City of Ballarat the yellow-lid bin, which was where we would dispose of our recyclables, whether that be aluminium cans, plastic, glass, cardboard or the like.

The journey that our communities in that period went through, I think, was remarkable. There was initially resistance, but as society became informed of the facts people very quickly embraced that system. Later on, and I cannot recall the precise year, a third bin was introduced in our region, and I am pretty confident in most other local government regions, to deal with vegetation—so our kitchen scraps, our garden scraps and the like—which would then be composted and often sold back to communities as topsoil and the like. That was a fantastic journey. It was pleasing to see the leadership of the state Labor government in implementing those arrangements in partnership with our local government bodies.

Having said that, some 20 years later I suspect in many ways we have not implemented what we then called the three Rs—they were to reduce, to re-use and then as a last measure to recycle. I suspect we are still producing as much waste today per Australian as we were back then. Pleasingly, we of course are recycling our waste, but I do not think we have focused on that first R, which is to reduce. I think we have a longer journey to undertake. I think we have more reform that we need to implement to focus on that first R—the reduction R. This measure, I think, very much is an important step to that.

Like many people, and many people in this chamber, I have had the opportunity to travel to some remote parts of Australia, and I have been appalled at the amount of waste, particularly plastic waste, that I have seen in remote locations. The reality is that a lot of that plastic waste indeed will be on those beaches or in our oceans for an eon. We need to as a community, as a society, very much focus on reduction. If we get that right, then I think it makes the management of our waste system so much easier. I am sure all of us have seen reports in the media of whales that have washed up on beaches globally and unfortunately those magnificent mammals have consumed large volumes of plastic where they have unfortunately mistaken plastic bottles, plastic bags and the like as part of their food stream. We have seen reports of that. We have seen mammals washed up—magnificent whales that have consumed so much plastic that they no longer have the capacity to consume sufficient seafood.

I therefore very much support this amendment. I think it is a necessary amendment to begin the journey that we as a society need to undertake, which is the reduction of our reliance on plastics. I very much support the direction of the minister and the work that she has undertaken to better understand our waste management stream, to identify new uses for plastics, glass and the like, to create new products that we can use to help build our community and to do it in a way that is environmentally sustainable and that leads to better consumer behaviour. I think importantly that sends a very strong message to a very powerful lobby in our community, the business lobby, which has in many ways for a long time resisted the modernisation of our waste management stream. They have not shown the leadership that I wish they had.

I must also note that we very much need in a very strong way to continue to lobby the commonwealth government. Most of the regulation that I think this country needs and most of the public policy that our society needs really needs to be driven by a commonwealth Parliament, by the commonwealth government, particularly in terms of working with our business sector to reduce the amount of waste that is produced for our society. I find it extraordinary that when I go to the supermarket often the only way I can buy a cucumber is wrapped in plastic. I think that is completely unnecessary. It is unwarranted, and that plastic wrapping will literally, if it is not disposed of appropriately or correctly, last in our environment, potentially doing untold harm, for eons. We very much need to make sure that we focus strongly over the next few years on reduction. I think the commonwealth needs to show more leadership on that. I am very pleased to say that I think society very much wants to push parliaments around Australia to show leadership and to implement reform so that we are far less dependent on and far less producing of waste.

Mr HAMER (Box Hill) (17:53): I also rise to speak on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019. This is an important bill and one that delivers on our promise to ban lightweight single-use plastic bags across Victoria. I am delighted to speak on it today because the Box Hill community is deeply concerned about our environment and what we pass on to future generations.

This bill will implement a ban on plastic shopping bags across Victoria with a thickness of 35 microns or less. Importantly the ban includes bags that are biodegradable, degradable and compostable. This is an important part of the bill, because these bags still have a significant and adverse impact on the environment and components of these bags can persist in the natural environment for many years. And similar to other jurisdictions, the bill introduces two new offences to ensure compliance and a level playing field for affected businesses. The bill will implement a fine for retailers who provide a banned bag to consumers as well as a prohibition against suppliers of plastic bags from providing false or misleading information about the composition of a banned plastic bag or whether a bag is banned. The bill also contains minor technical corrections to the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018. I welcome these changes because it will allow the comprehensive reforms passed by the previous Parliament to operate as intended.

Plastic bags have become part of our day-to-day lives. For many years there was an expectation on the part of consumers that groceries and other food products would be bagged for ease of transport. After their initial use the large majority of these bags would end up in the rubbish bin and eventually in landfill or be picked up by the wind and end up in local rivers or streams, where they would stay and stay and stay.

Perhaps there is no better way to explain the problem than with a 40-year-old single­use bag from KFC. Volunteers from the Sunshine Coast Clean Up Divers group recently found a bag a little damaged but still recognisable after four decades. And that is the problem—plastic bags are disposable, they move easily and they simply do not go away. Whether they end up in the land or the ocean, they can persist for centuries.

In researching this bill I have sought to understand the science to explain how a plastic bag is made, how it degrades and why it is important that we try and reduce the number of plastic bags in circulation. As mentioned, this bill seeks to ban plastic shopping bags, including those which are degradable, biodegradable and compostable. Standard plastic bags are made from high-density polyethylene, a material that requires a considerable amount of non-renewable resources to produce, including oil and natural gas. Degradable bags are made from similar petrochemical-based materials to conventional plastic but with compounds added that cause them to disintegrate gradually in the presence of oxygen. Biodegradable bags are made from plant-based materials, such as corn and wheat starch, rather than petroleum. While consuming renewable resources, their use consumes resources that could otherwise be directed towards food production.

In addition to the material used in the manufacture of these products the production of plastic bags requires significant amounts of energy. According to an ABS report from 2004, around 0.48 megajoules of energy is consumed to make one high-density polyethylene singlet bag, including the energy content of the bag. To put this in context, the production of 1000 plastic bags consumes the same amount of energy as is required to drive a car between Melbourne and Ballarat.

While the production and manufacture of plastic bags has a significant impact on the environment, the primary challenge that this bill is seeking to address is the end-of­life-cycle cost of plastic bags to our environment. Even though polyethylene cannot biodegrade, it does break down when subject to ultraviolet radiation from the sun—a process known as photodegradation. When exposed to sunshine, polyethylene’s polymer chains become brittle and crack, eventually turning what was a plastic bag into microplastics. These granules may never fully decompose, and some scientists fear that their build-up in marine and land environments may infiltrate and compromise every step in the food chain. A plastic bag might be gone in 100 years, but its environmental legacy may last forever.

Degradable bags are just as bad. A recent Senate inquiry into the threat of marine plastic pollution in Australia found that the degradable bag option is as bad for the environment as regular plastic bags. The main difference between degradable bags and regular bags is, as mentioned, the inclusion of additional compounds to speed up the degradation process. However, these bags still break down into microplastics.

Biodegradable plastics take three to six months to decompose fully. That is much quicker than their synthetic counterparts, which take several hundred years. Exactly how long a biodegradable bag takes to break down depends on various factors, such as temperature and the amount of moisture present. They often then degrade into a sludge of toxic chemicals. They also need certain conditions required for the bag to begin the biodegradation process. Firstly, temperatures need to reach 50 degrees Celsius. Secondly, the bag needs to be exposed to ultraviolet light. It is difficult to achieve these conditions in the ocean. If biodegradable bags are sent to landfill, they break down without oxygen to produce methane, a greenhouse gas with a warming capacity 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

The environmental impact of plastic bag pollution, in both their undegraded and degraded states, is alarming. Australians used up to 10 million lightweight plastic bags every day, approximately 4 billion every year, yet they are used on average for just 12 minutes each. Of these, approximately 150 million end up in our oceans and waterways, contributing to an estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped into the ocean every year.

A significant number of the 4 billion bags used end up in landfill, and around 10 million end up as litter, polluting our environment and endangering our wildlife. This long-overdue reform will address those significant challenges once and for all. It is clear that marine wildlife right across Australia is being affected, including the very foundation of our marine ecosystem. This bill will not solve all of the problems facing our marine life, but it is a strong start, and I commend the Andrews government and the minister for their boldness in introducing these reforms.

Given the boldness of these reforms and the potential impact to the business community, consultation is vital to make sure we get it right. The National Retail Association has been working closely with the government and its members to make sure there is full knowledge of the new requirements, including the prohibition against even selling a single-use bag, as many retailers currently do.

Having reviewed the amount of information that has been provided to the business community, I am confident that there is ample information available to ensure maximum compliance. To be sure, any retailer who may be found in breach of the new regulations, should this bill become law, would find little sympathy if they try to use ignorance as an excuse.

I welcome the important work that the business community has done to make sure this reform works from day one. And when we asked the community what they thought, through extensive consultation, nearly 8000 Victorians responded. Their opinion was overwhelming: over 96 per cent of responses supported a ban on single-use plastic bags.

I very much doubt we could find near unanimous support on many issues, and that the issue before us today is one of them shows how important it is. We know the community has already shifted away from single-use plastic bags, with 76 per cent of Victorians taking a bag when they go shopping. That is important because a culture shift is needed by people of all ages to really make this ban work. As I said earlier, it was once the case that being provided with a plastic bag was merely a given. I am delighted that a culture shift has emerged, and I welcome this bill because it will further encourage that shift if passed.

I would like to again thank the Andrews government and the minister for their hard work in bringing these reforms to this place. It was no doubt a difficult talk, and one that required much work with various stakeholders and members of our community. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (18:03): It gives me great pleasure to join this debate on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019. I am really pleased that we are taking action. I am just so, so pleased that we are taking action. I live in a beautiful community called Diamond Creek, and it is based on the Diamond Creek, which is a tributary of our Yarra. I think it is a great shame when you look back at the colonising people that settled Melbourne for our purposes, displacing the traditional owners, and it was us that began turning the beautiful Birrarung into a drain, into a tip. It is really incumbent on us to turn that around in so many ways.

There has been action on the Yarra and its tributaries now for decades. We see the work in community groups and in friends groups—in the Yarra Riverkeeper Association—and so many people are more focused on the importance of our waterways. Of course what is in those waterways ends up in our beautiful Port Phillip Bay. This is the same for many other watercourses across Victoria and then of course our oceans across the planet.

There is something that makes me sad. I moved earlier this year to a townhouse right on the banks of the Diamond Creek. Most days I am really happy living right alongside there and seeing the great beauty, the birdlife, the trees and the various native animals that are around there and the respectful way that people treat the area, particularly people walking their dogs, respecting the fact that wildlife ought not be disturbed. But what does make me sad is that not enough people in the community pay attention to re-usable bags and single-use plastic bags and other plastic products like straws.

Close to the Diamond Creek where I live is the commercial centre of Diamond Creek, where we have our supermarkets and our takeaway food places. I commend the Coles supermarket because they have a plastic recycling opportunity there for people to go and return their single-use plastic bags. But really we have to get down to using less of them or not using these things at all.

I like to spend less time in the car because I really want to make less of an impact on the planet, so I use public transport whenever I can and I walk to the station. It makes me really sad when I see the amount of plastic bags and takeaway food containers—sadly, McDonald’s is right next to the train station—around the train station, and between the train station and our beautiful creek there is just so much plastic packaging that I know ends up in our creek. We have a platypus in an urban creek; on the metropolitan train line we have this beautiful township that has a platypus in the creek. But we all need collectively to do more to raise people’s awareness when they are shopping to actually think about those single-use plastic bags, think about straws and think about coffee cups.

I really want to acknowledge the work of Craig Reucassel and the team on ABC television, because I have to say that in my ignorance, until their War on Waste program, which I only became aware of it one day when I was walking up here to Parliament and they were filming their episode which talked about coffee cups, I did not know that coffee cups were not recyclable. I must say that I thought, ‘I should be more educated than this; I am a legislator’. I was really appalled with myself because I think most of us in here function and are fuelled on caffeine. So I made a pledge to myself that I was going to join Plastic Free July and that I was going to not use any more single-use coffee cups, because they are not, as I thought, recyclable because they have a plastic lining in them. You cannot put them in the recycling with the paper. I was thinking that it was only the plastic top that was creating the problem. Since that time—and it has been about two years—I have erred on about eight occasions and used a single-use coffee cup. Given that I am someone who has at least one each and every day of the week and of the year, I have made a difference. I think we all should start adding up those things that we can make a difference with.

When we moved to the property that we are living in now on the banks of the Diamond Creek we did not have a green bin. I thought, ‘Do we really need that big green bin?’. I discovered this magnificent product called a bokashi bin. We moved to the new place in January. The bokashi bin is about double the size of your normal green scraps bin that you would have in your kitchen, and it fits under our sink. We eat a lot of fruit and vegies in our family and we eat a lot of eggs—all of those things—but every single bit of food waste can go into the bokashi bin. It is a magnificent product. It gives you a grainy sort of leafy dry thing that you put in layers when you are putting the food in and it has a little tap at the bottom. You empty the tap every week or so; you put that in a bucket, dilute it with water and put it on your garden, and it is a magnificent fertiliser.

With all the food that we eat—we do eat out sometimes but we eat a lot of fresh food and vegies—we have had to empty that bokashi bin three times since we moved in, and previously we would have been putting the green bin out each week and putting in some vegie scraps. I am phobic about rodents, but we have managed to change our behaviour there.

I really want to commend the local community groups that are making a difference, particularly the bag groups that have worked in preparation for this change. All of the other speakers before me have talked about the details of this bill, so I thought I would just pat some people on the back in my community. Boomerang Bags Nillumbik was established a bit over two years ago, and I was really pleased to attend their launch in Hurstbridge. I want to thank the magnificent volunteers who on a weekly basis have been sewing re-usable bags ever since then. I want to thank the Hurstbridge and Districts Community Bendigo Bank for their sponsorship that has helped with the costs for this group. These volunteers have engaged schools, students and community groups in bag production. These bags are things of great beauty, and what else would you expect in creative and artistic Nillumbik!

Up in Whittlesea township they have also had a similar fabulous group of volunteers, and they actually let me come and hang out with them one afternoon. Some members here will know that I really love sewing and I like to upcycle bits and bobs. It is one of my little hobbies. I spent an afternoon sewing with a group of like-minded people, talking about how we can do things to reduce the waste in our planet and the damage to our environment, making sure that our waterways and our platypi and our fish and everything else are going to have a longer life and be the beautiful part of our environment that they need.

There is another product that we have used in our family. I see that the Minister for Public Transport is at the table and she knows that all our projects have begun using social enterprises. The Mernda rail project used Who Gives a Crap toilet paper. I have got to say our household has been using that for about three or four years. It is made by a social enterprise. It is made of recycled paper and they wrap it in paper. Try to buy those essentials that are not wrapped in plastic. We need to look around for those sorts of solutions, but it is possible. I have drawn inspiration from both my grandmothers who were farm women, who knew that you could not just throw things away because it would damage your environment, it would damage your food production. I want to commend everyone that has been involved in the development of this bill: the minister, her staff, the public servants, everyone else that has spoken on this bill—you have done a great job. We need to keep doing more. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr MAAS (Narre Warren South) (18:13): I too rise to speak on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019. I would actually like to pick up on the comments that the member for Yan Yean made in relation to the bokashi bin. I too have recently changed my habits and have been composting food waste. It was actually at the behest of the local council, which offered an economic incentive to households in the community to enable that change of habit to occur, and it has been a very, very positive thing for my household and for the community. Changing habits is indeed what this bill is all about.

The bill delivers on the commitment which was made by the Andrews Labor government to introduce a ban on lightweight plastic shopping bags. The ban is one of many different initiatives supporting this government’s agenda to reduce plastic pollution and to shift from a linear model of resource consumption to that of a circular economy of waste minimisation through re-use and recovery.

The Recycling Industry Strategic Plan sets the vision and the goals for kerbside recycling in Victoria, including reducing contamination in the kerbside recycling stream. Plastic bags are just one of the contaminants in kerbside recycling bins, and the ban will assist in addressing this particular challenge. The government is also committed to releasing a plastic pollution plan in 2019 and developing a circular economy policy for release in 2020.

In looking at overall objectives the bill is an important milestone in progressing the state’s comprehensive long-term waste resource recovery and environment protection objectives. The bill introduces a ban on lightweight plastic shopping bags that has six primary aims: to encourage retailers and consumers to use re-usable shopping bags; to reduce plastic litter and the consequential negative impact on our environment, wildlife and amenity; to reduce the rate of contamination from plastic bags in kerbside recycling bins and improve sorting, reprocessing and the quality of recyclable packaging; to increase awareness of unnecessary problematic single-use plastic items and encourage the use of more sustainable products and packaging; to provide increased consistency for retailers, suppliers and consumers in line with plastic bag bans in other Australian jurisdictions; and, finally, to support global efforts to improve the productive use of finite resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle the impacts of single-use plastics. The bill also rectifies some minor errors in the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018, so that the amended Environment Protection Act 2017 can operate as was originally intended.

So we move to what the bill will do. The bill will implement a ban on lightweight plastic shopping bags throughout the state. It is an important milestone in tackling problematic plastics in our environment and will deliver positive outcomes for the environment, animal life and waste stream, as well as our public amenity. The ban will further encourage the greater uptake of re-usable bags and build on positive momentum that has been growing in our communities towards embracing more sustainable alternatives. In doing so this bill bans the provision of all lightweight plastic shopping bags made in whole or in part of plastic where any part of the bag has a thickness of 35 microns or less. The ban will include biodegradable, degradable and compostable plastic bags, as we know they have comparable impacts on the environment. The ban will result in significant behaviour change by preventing retailers from providing shoppers with a banned plastic bag. The ban also prohibits retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers from providing false or misleading information about the composition of a banned plastic bag or whether a bag is banned.

In introducing this bill the government has consulted widely and looked at what other jurisdictions have done at both national and global levels, and consultation is of course key. To ensure that a ban on lightweight plastic bags would result in a sustained reduction of plastic bag litter in Victoria the government consulted with the community and businesses rather than moving straight to the implementation of a ban. Through this process government learned, from retailers, consumers and other governments that have already implemented plastic bag bans, to develop a ban that is fair, effective and long-lasting.

A pre-ban survey of 284 small to medium-sized retailers, undertaken in February of this year by the National Retail Association, found that more than three in four retailers supported the ban and one in two retailers strongly supported the ban. That survey provided an important insight into target audiences within the community who warrant closer engagement to ensure they too make the necessary changes before the ban comes into effect.

In terms of the wider Victorian community, we know that they take the issue of plastic pollution very seriously. Our public consultation on plastic pollution, which was held back in 2018, received over 8000 submissions, more than any public consultation undertaken by the government in that year. Respondents expressed strong support for a ban on lightweight plastic shopping bags, with more than 96 per cent of submissions supporting a ban. So the key take-outs from that are that there is strong support for the banning of plastic bags, there is support for broader action to reduce other types of plastic pollution, there are benefits of national consistency in closing loopholes and there is a need for education on plastic bag use and other plastic pollution.

As I have said, we worked closely with the Victorian community and businesses during the development of this legislation. Our major retailers, who have already introduced single-use plastic bags, namely Coles and Woolworths, we know are very supportive of this ban on plastic bags. Some 70 per cent of Coles customers now bring their own re-usable bags every time they shop, demonstrating a very clear change in behaviour. In terms of Woolworths, they have said that one year after they phased out single-use plastic bags it is clear that Australians have formed new habits and embraced a vastly more sustainable way of shopping with re-usable bags.

So shifting Victoria to a more circular economy can reduce waste generation, increase re-use and recycling of resources and improve waste management. Our circular economy policy and action plan will provide clear policy direction on resource productivity in Victoria. It will consider how governments, businesses and households can all avoid waste, make better use of materials and resources, prolong the life of infrastructure and products, and increase re-use and recycling.

In terms of the application of the ban, the ban on selling or providing a banned plastic bag will apply to all retailers, including markets and online stores where the customer can collect the goods from the retail premises. The ban will also prohibit a retailer, wholesaler or manufacturer from providing or omitting information that the retailer, wholesaler or manufacturer knows or should reasonably know is false or misleading about the composition of a banned plastic bag, whether a bag is a banned plastic bag or whether a bag is an exempt plastic bag. The ban of course will come into effect from 1 November unless it is proclaimed earlier.

Finally, the government will be supporting retailers to implement this ban, and the government has engaged the National Retail Association to help retailers transition away from lightweight plastic bags. The 12-month engagement program focuses on in-store, face-to-face engagement with small-to-medium-sized businesses throughout Victoria, providing information about the ban as well as sustainable packaging alternatives.

This is a government that listens. It is a government that consults widely and enacts laws for the benefit of our community and that of future generations too. With the proposed banned plastic bags only being manufactured overseas the positive impact will also be felt in our transitioning economy, and on that basis I commend the bill to the house.

Mr BRAYNE (Nepean) (18:23): I am here to speak on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2019. This bill seeks to do a couple of things: teach environmental habits, create a more plastic-conscious population and see less plastic input into our oceans. These aims are achieved through legislating to introduce a ban on lightweight shopping bags.

Having lived on the Mornington Peninsula my entire life, I can tell you all that the plastic that is often used throughout Melbourne, the plastic bags often used throughout suburbs of our state, often ends up along the shores of our beaches in Nepean. I regularly meet with people on the Mornington Peninsula who dedicate their own time, even last week when that wind was cruel and that rain was so harsh, to collecting the rubbish along the Dromana, Rosebud and Rye beaches. Josie Jones, Mornington Peninsula Citizen of the Year, is a super trooper at this, regularly traversing Dromana beach searching—but in reality not needing to search far—to collect rubbish. I have been with Josie to do this, as seen in the recent Monash University documentary A Brayne in Parliament, which you can watch on Facebook. The plastic bags make up one part of the plastic debris that washes up on our shores. There are bottles, bottle lids, cigarettes, straws—those bloody straws—and plenty of others.

Mechelle Cheers from Rye along with Sacha Guggenheimer and Josie also ran this year’s Seaside Scavenge. This was a huge exercise in rubbish collection, with the kilograms of rubbish collected able to be converted into tokens for coffees, light snacks et cetera. Fortunately by the time I got down there the rubbish along the beach had largely been exhausted, so I walked along Point Nepean Road for about an hour and a half—unbelievable amounts of trash. I will never understand why people are just so careless when they come down to our Mornington Peninsula and think they can just throw trash out the window.

Lyn from Nurdles No More has also spoken to me multiple times about the topic of nurdles. Nurdles are small bits of plastic that are used to create milk bottles, plastic containers and multiple other plastic items. Regrettably these are often washed away from industrial factories. They end up in the water and usually end up on the beaches down on the peninsula. They are such small bits of plastic, which means fish and birds confuse them for bits of food. The peninsula is full of people who spend thousands of hours of their time picking up this plastic material that ends up on our beaches. This ban goes some way to addressing this monumental environmental challenge.

We know this ban will be difficult for some. I recall when the ban by the supermarkets came into effect. My friend Alex Gates, who formerly worked at Ritchies IGA in Mount Eliza, which is actually occasionally visited by Hugh Jackman, told me how some of the customers would abuse him over there being no plastic bags. Not Hugh Jackman—I am sure Hugh Jackman would be a big plastic bag hater. He would hate plastic bags. Please show respect to your local supermarket clerks, and we will show respect for our environment and our marine life by supporting this ban.

Perhaps one of the reservations might be how this is going to affect the retail industry, already under so much pressure. Notable is that the National Retail Association found that more than three in four retailers support the ban and one in two retailers strongly support the ban, because the members who make up this association also have to live with a pollution-filled world—and a pollution-filled world is typically bad for business.

I am so glad that this is a bipartisan bill. It should be on all political parties to support efforts to remove this mentality that we can use an item and then throw it away. When something is thrown away it is good to remind ourselves that there is no ‘away’. There is one planet. Our future generations—my kids, your kids—will thank us for this legislation.

Ms HALFPENNY (Thomastown) (18:27): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.