Wednesday, 29 October 2025

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (10:04): I move:

That this house:

(1)   notes that:

(a) the state government’s container deposit scheme (CDS) was introduced to encourage recycling and reduce litter across Victoria;

(b) concerns have been raised by councils, community members, retailers and beverage suppliers regarding government-imposed charges within the CDS framework;

(c) questions remain about how charges are calculated and applied, including in relation to containers that are not ultimately returned via the CDS but are placed into the yellow recycling bins;

(2)   in accordance with standing order 10.01, requires the Leader of the Government to table in the Council, within four weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution:

(a) all documents detailing the methodology used to determine government charges and handling fees under the CDS;

(b) all correspondence and briefings to or from the Minister for Environment and the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action concerning charges applied to containers that are not returned via the CDS but are placed into the yellow recycling bins;

(c) all cost–benefit analyses, modelling or financial projections underpinning the CDS fee structure; and

(d) all reports or reviews assessing the impact of the CDS charges on consumers, beverage producers and local councils.

I am pleased to move the motion standing in my name seeking the production of documents relating to the state government’s container deposit scheme. This is a modest and reasonable request. The motion simply asks the government to table the documents which explain how the fees and charges under the scheme are calculated, what correspondence has taken place between the minister and the department and what cost–benefit analysis or financial modelling underpins the scheme’s design. It is a matter of transparency and accountability, not ideology. Recycling is important – no-one disputes that; but good intentions do not excuse poor administration, and this scheme raises a series of legitimate questions which the government has so far failed to answer.

The container deposit scheme was introduced to encourage recycling and reduce litter; that is the headline purpose and sounds straightforward enough, but in practice what has emerged is an extraordinarily complex system involving multiple layers of fees, agreements, reporting obligations and penalties imposed on manufacturers, distributors, retailers and councils alike. Local government in particular has flagged serious concerns, as the shadow minister has raised with me repeatedly. Councils are required to introduce a fourth bin for glass, to manage new collection streams and to communicate new rules to ratepayers, all at a cost borne locally through higher waste charges. At the same time, beverage suppliers are paying new government-imposed charges under the CDS framework, a structure which remains opaque. I want to give particular credit to Cr Jim Grivas of Manningham City Council, who has discussed this matter in detail with me. He explained a system that places new administrative burdens on businesses and ratepayers while enriching the state and its contractors. Under the scheme, every bottle or can sold in Victoria must be registered. The manufacturer or importer must pay a per-container charge to the scheme coordinator VicReturn and must report quarterly on the number of containers sold. Even a failure to report zero activity can attract penalties. Invoices must be paid within five days. Labels must be redesigned, and each product line must be separately registered not just in Victoria but in every participating state and territory.

The administrative cost is substantial, but more concerning to me is the question of where the money actually goes. For each container sold, the supplier pays more than the 10 per cent refund that is advertised to consumers. The average figure is around 16 cents. That means there is a margin of roughly 6 cents per container between the amount collected and the refund available and no clear public explanation of how that difference is used or distributed. If a consumer does not return their container for a refund – if it goes into a yellow bin or the household waste stream – that 6-cent margin becomes effectively a windfall to government. But who keeps it? Is it retained by the scheme operator or does it flow to the state? How much has been collected in total, and what proportion of containers are actually redeemed? These are not unreasonable questions. They go to the heart of whether the scheme operates as a recycling initiative or as a revenue mechanism dressed in green. Victorians deserve to know whether they are paying a hidden tax every time they buy a drink.

The government’s own public communications emphasise the environmental benefits, but they say little about the financial structure. There has been neither transparent publication of the modelling used to determine the fees nor any explanation of the treatment of containers recycled through council kerbside systems rather than returned through official depots. If this scheme is genuinely designed to improve recycling outcomes, the government should welcome scrutiny; if it is efficient and fair, there should be no reason to withhold the figures. But if on the other hand the scheme has been built around opaque charges, uncertain cost recovery and windfall revenue, then we in Parliament and the drink-buying public are entitled to know. This motion seeks documents that will clarify those matters, the methodology for setting fees, the correspondence that guided those decisions, the cost–benefit analyses relied upon and any reports assessing the impact on consumers, producers and councils. This is not an attack on recycling, it is a defence of accountability. The government has a duty to show that environment policy is being delivered efficiently, transparently and honestly, not through hidden levies or off-budget revenue streams. I urge the house to support this motion so that these documents can be made public and Victorians can see for themselves how this scheme is really operating. Sunlight, as ever, is the best disinfectant.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (10:10): This government is always happy to provide those in this place with the documents they request. I am happy that today what we see before us is a documents motion with respect to the container deposit scheme, one of the most popular policies this government has undertaken. I know that people up and down my electorate, the Northern Metropolitan Region, have welcomed the CDS in fact with open arms. Schools, families and businesses have all decided to collect some cans and bank some bottles to make an extra buck, and I, for one, am absolutely delighted about it.

The rollout of the CDS was really one of the quickest and most successful uptakes of any government program, with over 600 CDS refund points open right across the state. Can I take the time to acknowledge and commend Minister Dimopoulos for his oversight of the project and also thank the former CEO Jim Round, who did an unbelievable job in making this program a reality in a very, very quick way. And I have got to tell you, so many community groups and sites and others have taken to this with such gusto. Even my office in fact has been collecting bottles and cans to take down to our local CDS reverse vending machine. We are not a full-on operation there – we have collected $47. But I will tell you that is $47 we would not have had if it were not for this government’s commitment to the circular economy.

On the circular economy, I have got to say, with this scheme Victorians are making wins at every point, creating clean streams of recycling, reducing their litter, reducing their waste and earning change for themselves, communities and charities. Victorians are taking these small steps to make a big difference not only in their back pocket but to their homes and to the environment, proving that this is for community and that we can continue to give back to community.

This government cares about the environment, and the $515 million investment into this state’s waste recycling industry is really a proof point of that. This investment has created jobs, with over 500 jobs being created in the first eight months alone of the scheme and now well over that in the past two years. This commitment has seen in the first year of the scheme’s life over 1 billion containers returned. It is the most successful container deposit scheme rollout anywhere in the nation. With over $100 million returned to Victorians in the past two years, this scheme has proven that the model of a circular economy works. These figures show the scheme is achieving at its core the environmental objectives of reducing waste, increasing recycling and providing an incentive to return containers rather than dump them.

Beyond the environmental gains, I must say the scheme is already contributing to jobs and community funding. In the first year, the scheme generated nearly 600 direct jobs in Victoria, and it has emphasised community participation, including some really important partnerships with schools, grassroots organisations and culturally diverse communities. This week in Parliament we are hosting the Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association, which CDC has partnered with to ensure that Vietnamese Victorian communities are engaged, educated and benefiting from the scheme. I do know that there is a range of organisations right across the Northern Metropolitan Region who have partnered with the CDS and are taking up the enormous opportunity to increase participation in the circular economy. To them can I say thank you and keep it up – you are an inspiration to many more. I do hear from other organisations in the office asking about how they too can get involved in the scheme and take it up. I am truthfully quite thrilled that those opposite wish to know more about this government and our efforts to drive the circular economy in our state through the container deposit scheme while achieving some strong early successes which really have been embraced wholeheartedly by the community.

We have seen substantial diversion of containers from landfill, high rates of return, enormous community benefits and alignment with this government’s commitment to cut down waste. I could give you some tales, but I think if you are driving around the suburbs on the weekend and you come anywhere near a container deposit scheme, what you will see is a line-up of Victorians waiting to play their part in contributing to Victoria’s circular economy, and I congratulate and thank them for that.

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (10:15): I rise to speak on this motion. The Greens will be supporting this motion. We have a principle of supporting documents motions, but today, in the interest of transparency, I am very pleased to get the opportunity to talk about the container deposit scheme and the great benefits that it is already bringing to our state. For almost 10 years the Greens campaigned for Victoria to introduce a cash-for-containers scheme, and the success of this initiative is one of the countless reasons that I am very proud to stand here as a Greens representative and carry on the traditions of Greens members in this place who fought for the establishment of a container deposit scheme for nearly a decade. It is fantastic to hear the government’s enthusiasm for this initiative. It did take nearly a decade while Labor governments dragged their feet, and we are really pleased that finally, with Greens in government, good things happen when we push for long enough.

For almost 10 years, as I said, we campaigned for this. The Greens introduced legislation that was knocked back by Labor several times, Mr Galea, and at long last, following a Greens-initiated parliamentary inquiry into recycling and waste management in 2019 that recommended that the government establish a container deposit scheme, finally we saw the introduction of the scheme in 2021. In late 2023 it was up and running, and a year later the CDS marked its first anniversary by celebrating 1 billion containers returned and $100 million either back into Victorians’ pockets or to the charities that they had chosen to donate their refunds to. The CDS has been massively popular, and its earning potential has been embraced by everyone from schools, sports clubs and students to older persons and others who seek to supplement their income, or, as one enterprising person recently referred to it in the Age, their ‘bincome’. But it is not just about earning money, as has been said. The 2019 inquiry report found that in other jurisdictions container deposit schemes had been successful in both reducing litter, improving recycling rates by reducing contamination in different waste streams and providing that isolated and pure waste stream that is high value. In the first six months of Victoria’s CDS, donation partners – the charities Victorians can choose to donate their refunds to – had received nearly half a million dollars.

None of this is to say that Victoria’s CDS is perfect and we should rest on our laurels. There is much more that could be done to improve the scheme. For example, in New South Wales and South Australia recently they have expanded their schemes to include wine and spirit bottles, which are currently not accepted at return points here in Victoria, and a number of campaigners and recycling industry representatives have called for the 10 -cent refund to be doubled to 20 cents per container. Jeff Angel from Total Environment Centre and the Boomerang Alliance noted that only about 65 per cent of eligible containers are currently returned in Australia, compared with return rates of above 90 per cent for European countries where they have higher refund amounts. Additionally, Total Environment Centre’s recent 12-month review of Victoria’s CDS found that greater transparency is needed to understand how the systems of geographic zone operators with different types of return options are impacting return rates and the user experience. We are also hearing that over-the-counter return points may be less accessible and user friendly than the reverse vending machines. It would be good to know in particular, for example, if there is appetite for more reverse vending machines. I think it would be a great idea if we had an easily accessible reverse vending machine right here in the parliamentary precinct or nearby. Imagine all the bottles and cans we could save on site, and it would be accessible for the public. We could refund the money that we raise for charity.

I want to thank Mrs McArthur for bringing this today. It is a fantastic step forward that we have taken to establishing the CDS in Victoria. It is wonderful to see the uptake of it and the benefits that it is already achieving. But we probably can improve, and it is good to monitor how the system is working, the uptake and any barriers so that we can continue to improve on it. Also, just in the short time I have remaining, I want to give a shout-out to all of the community groups who campaigned for so many years in order to see a CDS implemented. Boomerang Alliance has already been named, but in my electorate I know Beach Patrol and Love Our Street do so much work to pick up rubbish off our streets and off our beautiful foreshore, and they have seen a real, marked reduction in containers that are accepted in the CDS. This is just one part of a waste and recycling recovery system. The Greens will be supporting the motion today and I say bring on transparency and let us keep improving the CDS operation.

 Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (10:20): I also rise to speak in support of this wonderful motion, and I am so glad to hear that everyone is excited about government transparency. Obviously, we all know that this container deposit scheme was sold to Victorians as a simple, clever way to clean up our environment: collect your bottles, get 10 cents back and help reduce waste. As a councillor, I was happy to support it in Melton, and it is going very well. My son is there every weekend. It is good stuff. But behind that 10-cent refund is a complex web of government-imposed charges and handling fees that hardly anyone understands. We have had councils, retailers and beverage producers all raising serious concerns about how these charges are calculated and wondering if the actual main purpose is to run the program as an income earner for massive profit rather than for the environment. We want to know if the extra money that comes from this levy is reinvested in the purposes that the scheme was set up for or if it is sent, for example, to help pay the $21 million of interest per day on our Victorian debt.

This motion, brought by my colleague Bev, simply asks for transparency. It calls on the government to table every document showing how these charges were worked out, what modelling was used and what impact they are having on consumers, councils and small businesses. If the scheme is fair and efficient and if it is totally 100 per cent geared at the purpose for which it was sold to the public, then the government should have nothing to hide.

Michael Galea: We don’t.

Moira DEEMING: Good. Well, it will be exciting.

Michael Galea interjected.

Moira DEEMING: Well, then, wonderful. You will just release it all. I do not know why it is not already public on the websites, then. I support this motion –

Members interjecting.

Moira DEEMING: You should have made it already public. I have already moved a motion in this house, which you guys argued against – about making this stuff public as a matter of default. The fact we even have to come here and ask for documents via a motion is the real problem, may I add.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and Victorians deserve to see the books and know exactly where their money is going. We should not have to come in here and beg and waste time making speeches.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:23): I am very pleased to speak on this motion, despite the fact I have only got 2 minutes on the clock.

Members interjecting.

Ryan BATCHELOR: That is outrageous from the opposition, saying that they do not want me to have more time on this motion. But I will speak on a couple of things. They are always interesting, these debates. We do not get much time. The government does not oppose documents motions. I will say two things. Firstly, we have had a debate, a back and forth with members of the opposition and the crossbench, about those who are moving documents motions. If they are interested in actually getting to the heart of the issue, they should try and move motions that are not such wide, catch-all nets seeking to get every piece of correspondence, every brief, every possible scrap of paper about a very broad issue. It makes it exceptionally difficult for the government to process these requests in a timely way. So I wanted to put that at the start. If you look at the terms of this documents motion, it is yet again casting a very wide net, seeking voluminous material. That will take time to process.

Secondly, it should not surprise me that the Liberal Party is criticising a program that is good for the environment and popular in the community, and it does not surprise me that the Greens are trying to take credit for it. Neither of those things surprise me. What the Labor government is doing is getting on with practical initiatives to support our circular economy, like the container deposit scheme – practical initiatives that are encouraging recycling in our community and encouraging individuals, like all those community groups and all the kids out there who are collecting these cans, to take containers back and get some change in their pocket. The CDS is popular. The CDS is working.

Motion agreed to.