THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
DRIVE WITH ALI MOORE
TUESDAY, 27 AUGUST 2024
SUBJECTS: CFMEU PROTESTS, SOFT PLASTICS RECYCLING, PETER DUTTON.
ALI MOORE, HOST: You are listening to 774 ABC Radio Melbourne Drive. And we have talked a lot on this program about the recycling imperative around soft plastics. Well, today three new projects have got funding from the Federal Government. Tanya Plibersek is the Minister for the Environment and Water. Minister, welcome to Drive.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Great to be with you.
MOORE: I know that you've had to obviously go through Melbourne to get here. There are protests in every state today in support of the CFMEU. Have you got a message for those protesters?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Oh, look, I think unions are absolutely critical to democracy and to industrial rights in Australia. I'm a big supporter of unions. I'm not a big supporter of criminals. And this union has unfortunately been penetrated by some criminal elements and we need to deal with that. And that's why we've proposed to put the union into administration in this way to make sure that genuine union members who deserve to have their rights protected and advanced by their union are actually properly looked after.
MOORE: But if that's the case, why is it that we've seen tens of thousands of workers from a whole range of different unions, not just the CFMEU, on the streets of most major cities today?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, and there's plenty of unionists who'd say that they support what the government's doing as well, because they understand that unions' first job is to look after their members, to stand up for their pay and conditions at work. And unfortunately, there are elements of the CFMEU that have not been doing that, in fact, that have been, you know, engaging in questionable, at best, behaviour and in sometimes, in some cases, criminal behaviour. That's not good. That's not good for the CFMEU, it's not good for their members and it's certainly not good for the broader union movement.
MOORE: So, do you think the tens of thousands are misguided?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's a question for them. I can't tell you why other people are making the choices they are to go out and protest. I think it's a good thing that Australians recognise the value that unions have brought to this country. We've got, you know, an eight-hour day because of the work of unionists. We've got protections like from industrial manslaughter because of the work of unions. We've got so many of the great advances in our country that many of us take for granted now: sick leave, holiday pay, all of these things are because of the work of unions. I am the first to say that they play a critical role in our democracy and in our community. What we can't allow are criminals to penetrate unions and use them for their own ends.
MOORE: Let's look at why you are here, which is the announcement around recycling and soft plastics. Three new projects. What exactly are they going to recycle?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, these are particularly focused on plastics. We've got something called the Recycling Modernisation Fund. Overall, we've got close to a billion dollars of funding going into modernising our recycling facilities across the country; paper, cardboard, steel, and tyres. And in this case, we've got a $60 million stream of this fund that is particularly targeting hard-to-recycle plastics, like soft plastics.
MOORE: So, we're talking the stuff we get in the supermarket?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, yeah. Packaging: your chip packets, you know, your lolly bags. Top of mind for me, perhaps, and a bit of junk food. The soft plastic was being collected in a lot of supermarkets by an organisation called REDcycle. Many of your listeners would have been doing the right thing, they thought, taking their soft plastics down to the supermarket. And as you would know, and as they would know, REDcycle collapsed. It collapsed with thousands of tonnes of soft plastic stored in warehouses. We know that we need to reestablish collection in supermarkets. We're working with the supermarkets to do that, but we need somewhere to recycle that plastic once it's collected.
And this investment, so far, we've invested in about 60 new plastic recycling facilities. About 16 of them are up and operating. This stream is particularly targeting those hardest-to-recycle plastics, like soft plastics. And so I was really pleased to go to this Pro-Pac group in Reservoir today. That's a $6 million investment that will see the soft plastic that they're making going from 100 per cent new virgin material to 30 per cent recycled. So, they'll be collecting the soft plastics, they'll be recycling it on site and making new plastic from it.
MOORE: How soon until household recycling, the sort of stuff that we were taking to our supermarkets and sending off through REDcycle, how soon until it will be able to - these will be able to accept that?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, it's already restarted in a limited way in a number of supermarkets. I'd like to see that roll out much more broadly, not just in Victoria, but around the country. But the truth is there's two things that we need to do longer term. The first is actually change what packaging looks like. We're working with the states and territories on new packaging regulations that would do things like mandate minimum recycled content, that would ban particular additives that make plastic harder to recycle, or packaging in general.
MOORE: But when are they coming? When are those regulations coming?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We're working on them now with the states and territories and that'd do things as well. Like your standard paper cup may be coated in PFAS at the moment and so you would think a paper cup could go into your paper recycling or even into your compost, but the coating on it makes it impossible to compost. So, we're looking at regulations on recycled content, but also things like coatings and additives that get in the way of recycling.
MOORE: I'm going to call to text here, just saying we desperately need them. Given that you can focus on the recycling all that you like, but you've got to stop the imports.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Absolutely. You need less virgin material going into this. We need to recycle more, we need to use less in the first place. But we're also part of a global negotiation at the moment. Australia's part of the High Ambition Coalition to end plastic pollution by 2040. So, we're working with other countries because as you know, most of what we're buying is we're either packaging here in Australia and sending it overseas or we're buying from overseas and packaging that's made overseas.
We're trying to set some of these standards as global standards, not just Australian standards. And then the other thing I'd say that's really important is relying on people and let's face it, it's usually working mothers to take the recycling down to the supermarket is not optimal. What we're trying to do with states and territories is look at how we can pick up soft plastics in roadside, you know, kerbside recycling collection. What do we need to do to make that possible? Because if it gets commingled with paper, that's a disaster. Most councils at the moment don't have the ability to do that. Some are getting the ability to do that. How do we make that national?
MOORE: How do you also make sure, I mean, you can invest in the new recycling facilities, you can put in the regulations to try and reduce the amount of material. But how do you make sure we don't end up with another REDcycle? That we don't end up where we think it's all good, but in actual fact it's just been stockpiled.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, well that's exactly why we're investing in the new recycling facilities. This will be over a billion dollars of investment. We will increase our recycling capacity nationally by 1.3 million tonnes per annum. And obviously that's good for the environment. It's also great for jobs. There's 3000 jobs that will come out of this investment in recycling.
MOORE: Can I ask you another question, politics of the day really?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yes, you may.
MOORE: Jim Chalmers, the Federal Treasurer, he made a, gave a big speech in Melbourne last night. He's been out giving interviews today. He's very clear that he believes the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton is the most divisive leader of a major political party in Australia's modern history. Here's a little of him speaking on AM this morning.
TREASURER, JIM CHALMERS: "He divides deliberately, almost pathologically. And that sort of division in our leadership, in our society right now is worse than disappointing. It's dangerous and in my view, it should be disqualifying when it comes to leading a great country like ours."
MOORE: Tanya Plibersek, do you agree that is a fairly big statement, the most divisive leader of a major political party in Australia's history?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I do think Peter Dutton is very divisive. And look, in politics, there's this kind of conventional wisdom that you can win people's support through hope or fear. Peter Dutton will choose fear every single time. I think Australians want hope. They know we live in a great country. They want to know our plans as leaders for making our great country even better. That's the hope message.
Peter Dutton spent most of the last two weeks in Parliament when we've got cost of living absolutely top of mind for most Australians, not talking about cost of living but talking about visas. We are three years into a three-year term of government, just about. What's Peter Dutton's plan to deal with cost-of-living? I would challenge you to name one thing that Peter Dutton is saying to Australians that he will do after the next election to help them deal with the cost of living pressures that they're under. On the other hand, today he's talking about $100 billion worth of cuts to the Budget.
His Finance Shadow Minister a couple of weeks ago was talking about $315 billion worth of cuts to the Budget. So, no plans for cost of living, secret Budget cuts, no costed policies at all. Really, going into the next election. Of course, he's having to rely on fear because he's got no hope to offer people.
MOORE: Well, he's got time. We don't know when the next election is going to be unless you can tell us.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I mean it's due May, next year. That's not miles away, is it?
MOORE: No, I guess not. Tanya Plibersek, thank you very much for coming in.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's a pleasure.
END
