Page 1970 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 June 2021
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Our government maintains a strong commitment to supporting and empowering communities to make informed decisions about their consumer rights. Implementing sensible right to repair policy mechanisms has great potential to support consumer repair rights, promote competition in the repair economy and encourage better product design.
As the government continues to deliver on our ambitious renewable electricity and greenhouse gas emissions targets, we know that new and emerging waste streams such as solar panels, batteries and other electrical items will increasingly become a focus. We have seen households take these up in huge numbers, often despite the lack of policy action by the federal coalition government.
According to the Clean Energy Regulator, as of April 2021, 34,000 homes in the ACT have small-scale solar systems installed. This represents over 20 per cent of all homes in the ACT. There has also been a strong uptake of battery installations for homes and businesses, through our government’s Next Generation Energy Storage Program, which was established in 2016. It has provided rebates for over 1,600 battery installations. Of course, there are now over 1,000 registered electric vehicles in the ACT.
In response to these emerging waste streams, we need strong product stewardship programs. For members who are unfamiliar with this approach—and I suspect that Ms Lawder may be unfamiliar with this approach; she was unfamiliar with the fact that she even had the waste portfolio until just prior to the motion that she moved back in 2019 in relation to PV recycling—stewardship schemes place the responsibility for end-of-life treatment on the manufacturers, importers, distributors, retailers and consumers of a product rather than the dispensers.
Ms Lawder interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Pettersson): The minister will be heard in silence.
MR STEEL: It is pleasing to note—and Ms Lawder may not even be aware of this—that the commonwealth government have recently invested $14.5 million into the development of 20 industry-led product stewardship schemes for products ranging from batteries to furniture and sports equipment. They have also established a product stewardship centre of excellence.
Although the commonwealth is focusing on industry-led approaches, the ACT government continue to advocate for product stewardship schemes underpinned by a strong regulatory framework. Given that the vast majority of batteries and solar panels are produced outside the ACT’s borders, from the ACT perspective it is crucial that there is a national focus on developing effective cross-government solutions.
The ACT became a member of the Battery Stewardship Council in early 2019. The commonwealth government has recently awarded the council $1 million to progress the development of a national product stewardship scheme by 2022. Our government is continuing to engage with the council on possibilities for the ACT, and the scheme is well progressed for the implementation early next year.
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