Page 1229 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 2013
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MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.52): In closing the debate on this motion I simply want to thank the ALP for their support of this motion. I think they have recognised the common sense that sits behind this motion. There are well-recognised benefits; I spoke about them in my opening remarks.
In light of Mr Smyth’s comments, particularly about the ACIL Tasman report, I would be fascinated to know who commissioned ACIL Tasman to conduct that report. It is always important to know what the question was that was asked, what the assumptions were that were made and who actually paid for the report.
I have just had my attention drawn to an independent review of container deposit legislation in New South Wales by the Institute for Sustainable Futures. It is one that was done without the commissioning of a large beverage company. I quote from the report:
When both financial and environmental impacts were considered on a whole of society basis, the potential benefits of introducing CDL—
container deposit legislation—
in NSW were found to significantly exceed the costs. The annualised net economic benefit of CDL in NSW in the case where recovered container materials are recycled was found to be of the order of $70-100 million per year compared to the current situation. This net economic benefit is largely due to environmental benefits that were valued by the CDL Review at $100-150 million per year. This valuation of environmental benefits is exclusive of the value of improved visual amenity due to litter reduction. Litter reduction is, however, an important benefit to be gained from CDL and has historically been a major driver for its introduction both in Australia and overseas.
It goes on to say:
In summary, the estimated value of the environmental cost of disposing of a single average beverage container to landfill, compared to recycling that container, is 8-9c. The cost of recovering that container through a combined CDL and kerbside recycling strategy is approximately 2-3c.
So far from Mr Smyth’s ideologically driven rant about the apparent economic disadvantage of this, what we can see is clear benefits—benefits that are measurable, that are identifiable, in terms of the value seen. And that is without taking into account litter reduction, which I know that at least some of Mr Smyth’s colleagues are concerned about because they keep asking me about it in this place and in the letters they send me. There is also a lower cost rather than simply sending something to landfill, because landfill actually costs money. In the real world where we are operating landfill costs money. There is a cost to these things. There is a cost to generating a drink container and then just throwing it away. But Mr Smyth conveniently ignores that in his outlandish defence of the interests of big business in this chamber.
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