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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1966 ..
MR CORBELL (continuing):
will come as no surprise to members that the Labor Party will be supporting this legislation.
The Waste Minimisation Bill 2001, from our perspective, does provide a comprehensive framework for developing and implementing strategies and other mechanisms to reduce waste, in particular, through the implementation of industry waste reduction plans. In some respects it is a bit of an anomaly that the ACT is only now introducing this Waste Minimisation Bill and the capacity for industry waste reduction plans. Legislation of this sort has been in place now for a number of years in some of the larger jurisdictions, particularly New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Those jurisdictions have already progressed a considerable way in the introduction of industry specific waste reduction plans to deal with a variety of waste dregs.
It is probably fair to add that those jurisdictions often deal with a lot more waste generated through industrial activity or other large-scale manufacturing activity. That is not so much of a factor here in the territory. Nevertheless, the ACT has at least put in place this comprehensive framework, which we are only now considering with this bill today. That said, we welcome the legislation. It is important legislation that provides for a range of mechanisms and, more importantly, it is a legislative framework that provides for addressing the issue of waste generated from various sources.
The Labor Party particularly welcomes the definition of environmental sustainability as outlined at the beginning of the bill. The principles of ecologically sustainable development are well spelt out in the legislation, and it is important that those are there. The other useful aspect of the bill from our perspective is that it provides for an updating of a series of regulations and the capacity to make regulations, which previously sat in rather old and outdated pieces of legislation, particularly the Building and Services Act. I understand that there is some sort of rubbish regulation as well, which allows the minister to set the size of bins and other interesting provisions like that, which is clearly-
Mr Rugendyke: Make them bigger, make them bigger.
MR CORBELL: Let's not have a big bin debate, Dave; that has been done. But that no longer really forms a necessary part of our waste legislation.
This is valuable legislation, and I am particularly pleased to see that the government has already commenced work on industry waste reduction plans for some elements of packaging. Once this bill is passed, I would like to see the government progress more rapidly towards the implementation of other industry waste reduction plans, particularly in the building and construction industry, which is our major generator of waste, as well as in a range of other industries in the territory. The Labor Party will be supporting this legislation.
MS TUCKER
(12.10 am): This bill has two parts. The first part relates to the introduction of industry waste reduction plans, in particular an industry waste reduction plan for the packaging industry. In 1999, the National Environment Protection Council and the Australia and New Zealand Environment and Conservation
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