Page 1222 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 2013
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I hope today we achieve tripartisan support here in the Assembly, recognising the various benefits that I have outlined earlier, both the environmental and recycling benefits, but also the reduction of litter, something that as the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services I receive extensive representation about. Certainly Mr Wall and others have taken that up with me as the minister since I have been in this role, and it is one that occurs right across the territory in a range of places.
My understanding is that the federal government’s next milestone is to report further on its consideration of a container deposit scheme around the middle of 2013. So I think it would be very timely for the Assembly today to convey its support for this positive initiative and, hopefully, we will see a day shortly where we will have a consistent container deposit scheme right across the country. I commend the motion to the Assembly.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (11.31): I move the amendment circulated in my name:
In subparagraph (3)(b), omit “work with other jurisdictions to establish”, substitute “subject to the outcome of regulatory impact assessment, consider the establishment of”.
For over 10 years, the government have been leading the nation in implementing cost-effective policies and programs to ensure the environmentally responsible management of waste in the territory. At the same time, we have been working, through activities in the national fora, to promote progressive evidence-based reforms in waste policy.
In December 2011, I released the ACT waste management strategy, which sets the goal of leading innovation to achieve full resource recovery and a carbon neutral waste sector. The strategy includes a range of local, national and regional measures to achieve these goals.
As an example of the territory’s leadership, in April last year the ACT became the first jurisdiction to introduce the new free drop-off and recycling of computers and televisions under the national product stewardship arrangements. Another example of this leadership is the implementation of the ACTSmart business and office recycling program and the ACTSmart public event program. These programs mirror the domestic recycling programs within the ACT and give businesses, offices and event holders and patrons the opportunity to recycle several items, including containers. Some 27,000 staff can recycle comprehensively in their workplaces and more than one million visitors to events had the opportunity to do so as a result of these initiatives. In addition, public place recycling was established in Civic around Garema Place in November 2011 and is to be expanded to Glebe Park in 2013-14.
Another national process which the ACT government has been supporting, through the Council of Australian Governments Standing Council on Environment and Water,
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