Page 1223 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 2013
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on which I am the ACT’s representative, has been targeting packaging waste, including beverage containers. This process has been assessing a range of options, including a possible national container deposit scheme. This has been a protracted process, which I know has been frustrating for many participants, including me.
Therefore, it was no surprise that in late 2010 the Northern Territory chose to act unilaterally and to progress legislation through the Environment Protection (Beverage Containers and Plastic Bags) Act. Plastic bags, surprise, surprise! The act provides for a container deposit scheme, using legislation based on the South Australian scheme which has been operating since 1975. It also provides for a ban on lightweight plastic shopping bags, a ban, I notice, which the newly elected conservative Northern Territory government has not repealed.
The Northern Territory have specific issues with packaging litter that, in their own assessment, can be effectively addressed through a container deposit scheme, and it is the government’s view that the Northern Territory should not be hamstrung in their attempts to tackle this issue by the circumstances and positions taken by other jurisdictions.
Moving to the issue of mutual recognition, the ACT is a beneficiary of reforms over the course of the last century to develop a single national market for goods and services. These reforms work to ensure that the economic wellbeing of its citizens would not be limited by inappropriate restrictions on trade between jurisdictions. In this tradition, all Australian governments passed mutual recognition laws in 1992. The mutual recognition acts are part of a national scheme that preserves the freedom of movement of goods and services between jurisdictions, consistent with section 92 of the commonwealth constitution. The effect of the scheme is that the jurisdiction-specific legislation that purports to prohibit or limit the sale of goods unless specific criteria relating to the conditions of sale are satisfied will generally not apply to imported goods manufactured in another jurisdiction in compliance with that other jurisdiction’s laws, unless an exemption has been obtained.
On 4 March last year, the Federal Court found that the Northern Territory container deposit scheme contravened the commonwealth Mutual Recognition Act 1992. The government does not comment on the Federal Court’s ruling. Nevertheless, we do support the principle of state and territories being able to enact laws to address local environment issues, such as the Northern Territory’s container deposit scheme.
The NT government is making an application to seek permanent exemption from the Mutual Recognition Act and the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act for its container deposit scheme. In November 2011, the Chief Minister wrote to the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister, Mr Henderson, indicating the ACT would support the Northern Territory’s request for a permanent exemption. The ACT would support including the Northern Territory legislation for its container deposit scheme in schedule 2 of the Mutual Recognition Act of the commonwealth. The inclusion of the legislation in schedule 2 would exempt the Northern Territory CDS from the relevant operations of the Mutual Recognition Act. The scheme provides for temporary exemptions of up to 12 months and for permanent exemptions. A permanent exemption requires the agreement of all participating jurisdictions.
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