Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Amendment Bill 2009

Extract from Hansard:

HON ALISON XAMON (East Metropolitan) [12.15 pm]: I rise to join the rather loud chorus of opposition to this legislation. That opposition arises not only from the members who occupy the benches on this side of the house, but also, unfortunately, from pretty much all the stakeholders involved in the issue of waste management. Hon Robin Chapple, who has carriage of this bill on behalf of the Greens (WA), has already comprehensively gone through the Greens’ opposition to this bill and our myriad concerns. I am aware that a number of amendments are proposed by which we hope to further flesh out the enormous problems that we have with this legislation.

The Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Amendment Bill 2009 is appalling legislation and I find it extremely disappointing that legislation of such poor quality and such poor intent is being considered in this place. I am extraordinarily disappointed by what seems to be a rather consistent theme from this government.

This has some nasty resonance to the Perth parking levy discussed yesterday; namely, this government’s disturbing lack of concern about or respect for any of the measures put in place by previous governments of both persuasions to deal with the increasing problems that we have around environmental matters and, certainly, the issues around pollution. As it stands in this state, we already have very little in the way of environmental legislative regimes that have a positive impact on the environment. The original landfill levy was, at least, at the point of its creation, one measure that was geared towards creating a better environmental future. How terribly disappointing that, when we had legislation that was going in the right direction, one of the first things this government chose to do was to wind back that original levy. This government is going in the wrong direction for our future and for that of our children.

We produce too much waste. That is a fact. We over-package our products and we do not recycle them. We are careless with what we throw out. I am very concerned that when I purchase goods there is already far too much unnecessary packaging surrounding the goods. It is very difficult at times to try to purchase goods without inadvertently contributing to the massive waste problems that we have, because it can be quite difficult to source products that are either packaged appropriately with materials that are able to be recycled or have minimal packaging; although I will say that I attempt to do that as much as possible. Nevertheless, we divert far too much of our waste to landfill. I was thinking about what I wanted to say on this legislation. I certainly want to speak on it, despite it not being the portfolio I hold on behalf of the Greens (WA), as I am so horrified by how retrograde these measures are.

Hon Ken Travers: You’re such an elegant speaker; it’s always good to have your opinion.

Hon ALISON XAMON: I thank Hon Ken Travers.

Thinking about this, I was reminded of a movie I was watching with my children not that long ago. It is the animated feature Wall-E. I am not sure whether members have seen that particular movie. It is very sweet, and it is obviously geared towards children. It is clearly fictional.

Hon Ed Dermer: I know I enjoyed it.

Hon ALISON XAMON: It is a particularly good movie, and my children enjoyed it enormously as well. It also contains some rather poignant messages. It gave us an idea of what a future without appropriate waste measures might look like. It is set several hundred years into the future, but it made the very salient point that we are effectively creating a future in which we are potentially drowning in our own waste. We are creating a future in which we are careless with the resources we have, and we are simply not doing enough to make sure we move into the environmental future responsibly. That is where this legislation comes in. At this point in history we should be moving towards legislation that will encourage us to reduce the amount of waste we are producing, reuse as much as we can and, of course, recycle. This legislation completely fails to assist with any of these measures. In fact, it actually hinders those positive measures that we had in place to move towards reducing, reusing and recycling our waste.

It is absolutely significant that this bill appears to have failed to garner support from anywhere apart from the government. I could not find in my region—the East Metropolitan Region—a single local council that came out in support of this bill. I certainly found many who were prepared to come out vocally against this legislation. I have some letters here that were sent to me by various councils. I will read a few choice ones. I am happy to hand them to Hansard or, for that matter, to table them in order to assist Hansard. I have a letter from the mayor of the City of Swan, who writes —

The City is strongly opposed to the amendment of the WARR Act to change how the levy can be used. While the City was disappointed that the levy was introduced at such short notice, there is a sound rationale for the levy if it is used to address waste management issues within the community; 

Of course, we know that that is not the case. I also have a letter from the Town of Bassendean—also in my electorate—and it states —

In the first instance, Council was quite disappointed that process that has been undertaken by the State Government and in particular that there was no prior consultation with local government … Council is concerned that the funds are being predominantly treated as revenue for the Department of Environment and Conservation.

The list goes on. My local councils, which have the responsibility of dealing with waste issues, do not support this legislation. It would have been thought, considering that these are the key stakeholders, that not only are they the ones who would have been consulted, but also there would have been some sort of attempt at a consensus or agreed view in dealing with waste. But that has not been the case.

I also refer to the Western Australian Local Government Association, which has been very vocal in its criticism of this legislation. Looking through WALGA’s comments, I note their consistency with Greens policy on the matter of waste management policy. I felt that those comments were right on the money. The association’s concerns are that this legislation will go absolutely nowhere in assisting local government with waste management, and will not help councils create a better future with an improved waste regime either. Like the Greens, WALGA supports the levy being used to achieve strategic waste management objectives, but it recognises that this bill will not do that.

I have another letter from the Forum of Regional Councils. Regional councils in my area who are involved in FORC are also opposed to the way that this bill has been proposed. I am sure that I am not the only person who received correspondence from FORC. The forum outlined a number of amendments that it believes will be absolutely necessary to make this legislation workable. I am conscious of the concerns, and I will quote from another letter that I am happy to make available —

Without this investment in RRF infrastructure, —

They are talking about money that should be transferred from the waste levy —

the State Government will not be able to achieve its resource recovery targets of 70% by 2015, as stated in the recently released Draft Waste Strategy for Western Australia. The Draft also states that the current recovery rate is 45%, but in fact it is closer to 35%, so a 100% improvement is needed.

We are not going in the right direction in waste management. Correspondence from councils in the East Metropolitan Region repeatedly states how concerned and disappointed they are at the total lack of consultation in the development of this legislation in the first place. The timing of it was incredibly disrespectful to these councils, coming just before their budgets were being finalised. I know that, as a result of the outrage caused by the government’s poor handling of this legislation, the government had to go back and reassess its time frame, but not before creating considerable headaches for our local councils. Our local councils work very hard under unenviable conditions. They do not have enough money to perform the wonderful job that they do. At the very least they deserve to be treated with a bit more respect, certainly in terms of consultation. I also particularly note how different the creation of this bill was from the development of the original legislation. I note that the original legislation achieved bipartisan support, which was very positive. This government could learn something from that approach. There is something to be said for making sure that all stakeholders are brought to the table and consulted, and that a shared view is brought forward. It makes life a lot easier and, more importantly, it achieves a better outcome. I suggest that this government’s almost pathological desire to not consult with stakeholders on a range of matters is resulting in the production of legislation like this, which is appalling.

The failure in this bill to ensure that the additional moneys raised are put into resource recovery is shameful.

There is considerably strong opposition to the moneys being raised being used to fund the Department of Environment and Conservation. I think that provision is a rather cynical move, and I would like to say how disappointing that is. To make one of our environmental watchdogs, if we like—at least that is what DEC should be—financially dependent on increased levels of waste has to be political cynicism at its absolute worst.

Hon Ken Travers: Rushed through the Parliament.

Hon ALISON XAMON: Absolutely. The Greens do not have a fundamental problem with increasing the waste levy as such, nor do the councils from what I can gather, and nor does WALGA or FORC—the Forum of Regional Councils. However, we recognise that when it is being considered, it needs to be done in consultation with people’s expectations. I am aware, for example, that the City of Bayswater had already factored in a minor increase in the waste levy, but that is very different from the huge increase this bill proposes. We do not have a fundamental problem with increasing it. We recognise that, under the provisions of the current legislation—not this bill that is before us now—increasing levies and investing the funds into waste management is not a bad thing; it is a positive measure. We need to discourage increased levels of landfill and we certainly need to address people’s reluctance to recycle. Imagine what our local and regional councils could be achieving if this proposed significant increase in the waste levy could be put back into waste recovery programs at the local level.

In the East Metropolitan Region alone councils have been working really hard towards trying to meet the draft state waste management strategy of 70 per cent diversion of municipal waste by 2015. Local councils have been looking at ways to invest in their own waste infrastructure. By removing that capacity, and instead using the levy to fund DEC, the state government is undermining local government in these important efforts. I know, for example, that there has been a lot of discussion at the EMRC about possible waste recovery options. That is still to be resolved. The community certainly feels that it has a very strong investment in what that will be. But it is indicative of how seriously the local communities are taking the issue of waste recovery. It is important to people. People want to know what will happen with the waste; they want positive outcomes with waste recovery. We should be assisting local councils in their efforts to deal with the increased problem of waste, not hindering them.

Hon Ken Travers: Hear, hear!

Hon ALISON XAMON: Certainly in correspondence I have received from councils in my area, they have sought a number of urgent amendments to the legislation. In particular, they want residual waste from resource recovery facilities to be exempt from the landfill levy. The application of the landfill levy to residual waste from resource recovery facilities acts as a disincentive to developing resource recovery solutions. To alleviate the disincentive, the councils propose that the levy not be payable on residual waste from the RRF and that the money that would otherwise be paid in landfill levy on residual waste should be set aside by the resource recovery operator to fund research and development into further infrastructure to divert residual waste from landfill. The state government is requested to provide capital contributions covering 50 per cent of the operational cost of the RRF, noting that the cost of the RRF can be in excess of $100 million. A capital contribution from the state government will help cover the estimated $400 million to be spent over the next six years, if WA is to achieve the stated objective in the draft state waste strategy of 70 per cent diversion of municipal waste from landfill by 2015. The WARR amendment bill should be amended to ensure that 50 per cent of all landfill levy moneys collected are directed to local government waste management programs that increase the diversion of waste from landfill.

A sunset clause should be applied to the amendments to the WARR act so that after an agreed time, it reverts to the current arrangements before hypothecation of the landfill levy to waste programs. Those councils said that that will enable the government to secure funding to ride out the economic downturn, but does not lock in such arrangements for a time when landfill levy investment in waste infrastructure becomes critical, although I would argue that that is now. They want a position to be developed on the relationship between the landfill levy and the costs that flow from the carbon pollution reduction scheme. There is the risk that landfill taxes will increase dramatically and thereby remove funding that might otherwise be available to invest in alternatives. They have huge criticisms, yet they were not consulted. Those groups know what is needed and they understand the original purpose of the landfill levy.

I am also disappointed that, if we are looking at legislative regimes to improve recycling efforts, we could be doing a range of measures, but we are not. I am thinking, for example, of the container deposit scheme. Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has put together legislation to try to give us a scheme that is based on the South Australian scheme, which has been very successful for more than 30 years. This is the sort of thing we need to be looking at; we need to be serious about encouraging people to recycle. It is a very positive measure. I have very fond memories of being a kid who did not have a lot of money, rummaging around—I am not sure I would encourage my kids to do that now—in bins looking for old Fanta bottles and the like and taking them to the deli. I am afraid I used the money to spend on lollies. Nevertheless, that was a recycling effort of sorts and I have very positive memories of it. The point I am trying to make is that we could be doing a range of things legislatively that would help to solve the problem and certainly help deal with the fact that we have only a finite number of resources. I am also particularly concerned about the implications of this legislation for dumping. Increasing costs without the advantages of improving recycling infrastructure or incentives will result in increased levels of dumping. We are not keeping up with the levels of illegal dumping of rubbish that is occurring now, so I do not quite see how we will keep up with the possibility of even more levels. Where is that dumping likely to occur? A lot of that dumping is likely to occur in my region in the hills. It happens now. I walk in the hills—not as often as I would like, but reasonably often—and it is incredibly disappointing to see on the tracks the rubbish that has been dumped. The Department of Environment and Conservation is not keeping up with it now. I am not feeling remotely confident that DEC will keep up with it in the future.

Hon Sally Talbot: Two prosecutions in four years.

Hon ALISON XAMON: That is very disappointing. That is indicative of the lack of resourcing that has been allocated to DEC both now and in the past. This legislation will not improve it. What we will have is increased levels of rubbish. This rubbish is not only an eyesore, it potentially has negative impacts on our water catchments. I am always concerned about toxic waste that is dumped there and the various levels of toxicity that arise from it.

Basically, I have struggled to find anything positive about this bill. If members are prepared to excuse the pun, it is rubbish, and has no place in an environmentally sustainable future. It lacks vision, it lacks integrity, it is irresponsible, and it is cynical. I am wholly unimpressed with this bill, and I will vote against it. I am deeply concerned about the world we are leaving for future generations. Frankly, my children deserve better. This bill will do nothing to create a better future. Perhaps this bill is recoverable if the amendments that have been proposed are supported. I am disappointed that the amount of the levy will be increased to such a high level so quickly. I am concerned about the lack of consultation. But if we are to have an increased levy, the funds need to go towards research and development for waste and to resource recovery facilities.