Page 4240 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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MR STEFANIAK (8.20): I agree with the comments made by my fellow committee persons. The chairman, Mr Michael Moore, gave a very fair overview of what occurred. I listened with interest to what Annette Ellis said, which I think was also very fair comment. She made a very valid point in relation to packaging. I do not think she can use too many times the example of the toothpaste tube and the two, three or four layers of inner packaging; that is a very valid point and is wort repeating again and again.
It was a delight to be on this committee and I was very happy to be a member of it. We looked at a large range of areas, and I think the production of a discussion paper is most appropriate. Another committee next year can take up the issue and decide whether to go down the path of CDL or not. There were a number of peripheral issues we looked at in the compass of this inquiry; what the committee did goes a long way beyond the issue of container deposit legislation. A lot of the points we looked at go towards a number of environmental issues that are of great importance to the Territory. Container deposit legislation, in a way, is nothing new. South Australia has had it since 1977 and the ACT has had it. I can remember as a kid taking bottles down to the shops and getting back threepence or sixpence, or possibly 5c when we went to decimal currency. Times changed, and deposits on bottles in the ACT went out 25 or more years ago. The ever reliable milk bottle still exists and is still recycled. You can use those bottles something like 27 to 29 or 30 times; the recycling rate is about 99 per cent. The one per cent largely covers breakages and so on. There is, of course, no deposit on that bottle.
As the other committee members have said, especially the chairman, the committee did not want to compromise the very comprehensive kerbside recycling program that has been undertaken by the Department of Urban Services. Studies from the sample suburbs where it has been trialled indicate that it has a 90 per cent participation rate, and it is the hope of that department, and indeed of all of us, that that will be matched by recyclable goods being placed in the 240-litre bins and recycled rather than dumped. If we can achieve 90 per cent we will be doing exceptionally well. Even if we can achieve 80 per cent, we will be doing well. That, in itself, probably would negate the need for container deposit legislation. It would certainly negate it as a recycling tool. The committee felt that we need to see how that goes before any further decision is taken. I believe that kerbside recycling has the potential to go very well, and there may well be no need to bring in CDL, in relation to those types of goods to which it applies in South Australia, once a further study of recycling has been done 12 months down the track, when all of Canberra has it.
Another major constraint, which I think all members of the committee were aware of, is the fact that if New South Wales does not go down the track of container deposit legislation we would be crazy if we did. There would be huge problems if they did not do that. If New South Wales does go down the track of container deposit legislation, there would be a lot of very strong arguments for the ACT to follow suit. I still think it would need to be looked at again; but I appreciate that, if that were the case, the ACT being a small island of 300,000 people totally surrounded by New South Wales, the argument may become very persuasive. At this stage it is up in the air as to whether
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