Page 5800 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 2010
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Let us just dissect the policy rationale that has now been put forward by the minister. The environmental case fails. It failed when the Productivity Commission looked at it. It failed when the EPA told the Assembly just recently that it is really not much of a problem, in their estimation. The backup rationale concerned perceptions of a problem and the throw-away nature of the product. I wonder what other products we would ban based on their throw-away nature.
Let us look at the solution of the apparent throw-away nature of plastic bags. Many people do not use plastic bags. That is one of the interesting things about this debate. Many Canberrans—in fact, most Canberrans that I speak to—use them for all sorts of things after they take them back from the shops.
Mr Smyth: They recycle them.
MR SESELJA: They recycle them; they use them a number of times. One of the most common ways that they are used again is as bin liners. That is actually one of the most common ways that many Canberra families reuse their plastic bags. When they take plastic bags from the shops they can be used on a number of occasions for carrying various things around—transporting things to and from the office or from school—and keeping things from getting cross-contaminated. Then what they do is use them as their bin liners and they end up in landfill.
What we are doing to address the problem is to say, “Well, you can’t have that one-off plastic bag that you’ve used several times. What we’ll do is replace it with a genuine one-off plastic bag which is a bin liner.” This, in the government’s estimation, is the good type of plastic bag, the one you actually only use once, because most people only use the bin liner once. They use the bag to line the bin and then they throw it in the wheelie bin and it goes off to landfill.
So this is the government’s solution. They did not have an environmental case so they relied on the perception. They relied on the throw-away nature of the product and the fact that people perceive it to be wasteful. What a ridiculous way to make policy. What a ridiculous foundation on which to make laws. Apparently, it is the “perceptions” we need to change, so we need to whack $27½ thousand fines on small business.
Mr Smyth: How much?
MR SESELJA: $27½ thousand fines for people daring to hand out plastic bags. We need to “encourage more sustainable choices”—and that is why we have to turn people who hand out plastic bags into criminals.
One of the stakeholders that I have spoken to over the last few weeks is the National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia. NARGA, as they are known, represent small grocery businesses, including many IGA supermarkets here in the ACT. NARGA, I think it is fair to say, are deeply concerned by the ban. They made the point to me that plastic shopping bags are ideal for their purpose. They are light, strong, waterproof, hygienic, recyclable and reusable for a multitude of purposes. The
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