Page 2159 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
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As an update, the national PV stewardship working group has completed an assessment of all product scope and stewardship options, informed by in-depth engagement with Australia’s PV sector. Along with non-regulatory options, this includes assessing voluntary, co-regulatory and mandatory product stewardship pathways, and gathering the sound evidence base required to identify the preferred product scope and management approach going forward.
With the options assessment now complete, I understand that the national working group will soon make recommendations to ministers on a preferred product scope and management approach, or approaches, for all or some of the products included in a PV system. If a regulatory model is recommended which may legally require those deemed to be liable to financially contribute to the management of a scheme, this will trigger the need to conduct a COAG regulatory impact statement, or RIS, to accurately assess likely costs, benefits and impacts.
Stakeholder input is crucial for the success of any product stewardship approach. If an RIS is required, further stakeholder engagement informing RIS options will be essential. Australia’s PV sector and other potentially impacted stakeholder groups have been engaged throughout the initial options assessment phase and will continue to provide critical input into the next phase of the approach—assessing and testing effective scheme design elements. This working group involves all jurisdictions. All states and territories and the commonwealth understand the importance of implementing product stewardship schemes so that those businesses that create waste are partly responsible for the cost of disposal.
A key issue with Ms Lawder’s motion is that she would like to see individual Canberrans pay for the cost of disposing of solar panels, regardless of whether they have them or not, rather than solar panel retailers. That is why I believe that solar panel PV operators must take responsibility for the cost of recycling the panels that they sell under a product stewardship scheme. I will move an amendment to this effect, so that the ACT remains in line with every other jurisdiction in the country in our approach to developing a scheme.
Developing and adopting a national approach for the management of PV systems supports existing ACT government priorities, including our commitment to achieving 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020 and our ambitious target of 90 per cent resource recovery by 2025. This is just one of the reasons that the ACT government is committed to working closely with other Australian governments and industry to develop a national solution to this emerging issue.
Once a preferred stewardship approach is agreed at the national level, the ACT will follow suit to implement the agreed scheme to provide territory-wide certainty for the recycling and recovery of PV panels. It is our hope that such a scheme will be designed and established in the near future, and that panels will not be required to be landfilled. I look forward to keeping the Assembly updated on progress on this important issue. I move my amendment to Ms Lawder’s motion that has been circulated in my name:
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