Thursday, 15 August 2019

 Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (12:36): My question is to the minister representing the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. As each week goes by the waste and recycling crisis in this state gets worse. Since we last sat in this chamber one of our largest recyclers, SKM, has gone into liquidation, 33 councils are faced with sending their city’s recycling to landfill and we still have no solutions to the crisis, nor a policy that will guide the future of recycling in Victoria. We now have reports, as revealed by the ABC, that the Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) is paying for toxic waste to be transported from Victoria to South Australia, presumably as its response to reducing stockpiling. However, this waste caught on fire when it got to South Australia. Victorians need to know why the government’s response to our waste crisis is to ship our problems to other states and at what cost this is occurring. My question, Minister, is: does the government acknowledge the need for a statewide solution to ensure that our waste and recycling is processed in Victoria and not being handballed to other states or countries?

 Mr JENNINGS (South Eastern Metropolitan—Leader of the Government, Special Minister of State, Minister for Priority Precincts, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) (12:37): I thank Dr Ratnam for her question. Part of the commentary was a little bit provocative, but the question itself was okay. The question itself was okay because the question actually asked, ‘Does the Victorian government accept that we should have policy settings, a regulatory environment and market generation to deal with resource recovery and recycling in our state?’, and the answer is yes, of course we should. We should not rely on shipping large volumes of material interstate or offshore. Of course that is the policy setting that the Victorian government accepts as a policy setting it should support. Indeed we were supportive of that policy in terms of international terms of export of waste material at the relevant meeting of environment ministers within the last week.

The circular economy paper that my colleague Mr Somyurek has already referred to in this question time today and that my colleague the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change is working through with the government in terms of trying to achieve those outcomes is designed to achieve the principal position that we reduce the amount of material that is in the waste stream, we recycle it, we recover products and we have a viable market and industry policy in Victoria that accounts for that. You know the challenges across the world jurisdictions. Earlier this week my colleague referred to the international crisis in relation to these matters. Even countries that are the exemplars of recycling—even Japan, who are the exemplars of recycling—have actually had to deal with circumstances where they have not been able to export material to China. So it is a challenge. I am not actually saying it is China’s fault. This is an international issue for all economies to work out the way in which they can recycle matter and maximise resource recovery.

We have actually experienced here that with the market and the capacity to deal with material we were caught short because in fact the major provider and distributor of that material was found wanting in terms of being able to deal with the volumes that were coming to it. That is actually something that we are addressing. We actually have to take action to try to reduce the adverse impacts that it may have on kerbside collection and the consequences that ratepayers and councils may need to deal with. We have to take urgent action in relation to that. We want to support the re-establishment of a viable entity or entities able to take large volumes of material, and then we have to put in the drivers of investment to achieve those outcomes.

 Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (12:40): Thank you, Minister. I appreciate your response, and I am pleased to hear that there is some acknowledgement that there needs to be a statewide solution. The problem is that Victorians have seen piecemeal solutions and a lot of blame and shifting of responsibility to individual councils without responsibility being taken by the government. We need to see action more urgently. My supplementary question is: does the EPA routinely pay for our waste to be sent to other states, and at what cost was this toxic waste sent to South Australia?

 Mr JENNINGS (South Eastern Metropolitan—Leader of the Government, Special Minister of State, Minister for Priority Precincts, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) (12:41): It would be unwise of me to speculate, but as a policy setting this would not be an action that the EPA would voluntarily and regularly rely on—I am certain about that—and indeed it would not be their preferred course of action. They may have taken action in circumstances where they had virtually no option, but in fact in relation to the costings and the other aspects of this question I will—and of course you will and the community will—rely on my colleague to provide that answer.