THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA
TUESDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 2024
SUBJECTS: RECYCLING FACILITY AT LAKE BIBRA, ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION LAWS, MCPHILLAMYS GOLD MINE.
SPEAKER: Welcome to Veolia’s Bibra Lake Resource Recovery Park. This is a key piece of infrastructure for Perth. We receive over 220,000 tonnes of waste every year, and we divert around seven and a half of that every year. So today’s announcement – and we welcome the Minister for that announcement – will allow us to invest $15 million in a secondary paper and cardboard recycling facility co-funded by the federal and state governments to the tune of $8.3 million, and it will allow us to achieve purity levels north of 95 per cent and allow us to export those too. So really, thank you, Minister, appreciate you making the time, and over to you.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Thanks so much. Well, thank you so much for coming out today to hear about this terrific announcement. Thank you to Veolia for hosting us here at Bibra Lake. This is a very exciting day for recycling in Western Australia.
Today we are announcing an extra $100 million co-investment between the commonwealth government and the state government and industry here in Western Australia for nine additional recycling investments which will increase recycling capacity here in Western Australia by around 143,000 tonnes. I’ve just come from Rottnest Island – that’s about 50 million quokkas worth of landfill being diverted each year in weight.
That’s obviously so good for the environment, but it’s also great for jobs. This co-investment between the commonwealth, state and industry, will create around 240 additional jobs. We know that recycling is really good for the environment. It’s also really good for the economy. There are three jobs in recycling for every job in landfill.
So we’re delighted today to be making this investment. This is the second time I’ve been in Western Australia making recycling announcements like this. Earlier I made a number of recycling announcements with the Environment Minister Reece Whitby, and we’ll continue to invest with our partners here in the west, with the government and with industry, to increase the recycling capacity here in Western Australia.
Today’s announcements are about plastics, paper and tyres. And we’ve also done organic waste in the past and we’ll continue to work with the Western Australian Government on other recycling investment.
Of course, this is just part of our national investment in recycling. We are investing over a billion dollars with states and territories and with industry to more than double Australia’s recycling capacity – 1.3 million extra tonnes of recycling capacity rolling out right across the country. Of course, it’s important to recycle more than we do and as much as we can. But this isn’t the only thing we’re doing to keep waste out of landfill. One of the most important things we can do is change the design of particularly packaging and other stuff that ends up so easily in landfill. So we’re working with the states and territories on new packaging regulations that will do just that.
We’ve also, of course, changed the government’s Sustainable Procurement Policy. We’ve got one of the most ambitious in the OECD, meaning that companies that want big government contracts need to look at their own processes, their own sustainability, and recycling is just one of the elements that they’ll be looking at. We’ve already started that with big infrastructure and building investments. Next year we will add furnishings, ICT and textiles.
Of course, we’re also engaged internationally with the global plastics treaty. Australia is one of the most ambitious countries when it comes to the Global Plastics Treaty. We want to be a world leader particularly in keeping plastics out of our oceans where we know they’re doing so much damage. And these are just a few of the things that we’re doing to make sure that we take greater responsibility for the waste that we create, that we keep it out of landfill, we reduce the waste that we’re producing in the first place and that we move to a more circular economy, getting more value out of the things that we’re using.
Any questions?
JOURNALIST: Minister, the Opposition was somewhat surprised when the Prime Minister said publicly about the compromise deal you’re looking at on the EPA to make it compliance only. Are you hoping to get the EPA through – laws through the Senate in the next fortnight after you see that committee report on Monday?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I’m very much hoping that we’ll get our environment protection laws through the Senate. They’ve already passed through the House of Representatives. This is the second tranche of legislation; the first tranche obviously went through the Parliament at the end of last year. This second tranche has been through the House of Representatives. It’s soon to be debated in the Senate. And what I would say is there is something in these laws for everyone. What we’re trying to do is make sure we get faster, clearer decisions for business and we get stronger environmental protections.
I believe the business community have been strongly urging people in the Liberal and National parties to back these laws because they know that with faster, clearer decisions we get better investment, a stronger flow of investment, more jobs and economic growth for Australia. And I know that the environment groups are keen to see Australia’s first ever independent Environment Protection Agency set up with strong new powers and penalties for people who do the wrong thing by the Australian environment.
There is something in this package of laws for everyone, and it does reflect what Professor Graeme Samuel was trying to achieve with his review for the previous government. Everybody admits that our environmental laws aren’t working as they are now. They’re not working for business and they’re not protecting nature. We need a commonsense approach that gives better, faster, clearer decision-making for businesses and gives stronger environmental protections.
You know, we’re Australians; we love being outdoors, we love surfing, swimming, fishing, bushwalking, we love nature. We want our kids and our grandkids to be able to see the nature that we enjoy so much. Unless we protect it, it won’t be there for our kids and grandkids. So we need the jobs and investment and the certain pathways that our legislative changes will bring, but we also need to protect our precious places, protect them and begin to restore them.
JOURNALIST: So can you say a compliance-only model will be a toothless tiger?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, a compliance-focused EPA would be able to levy much larger – at the moment the maximum fine for a really deliberate, egregious breach of our environmental laws is less than $15 million. We’re proposing to take those maximum fines up to a similar level to what you’d get if you were insider trading or if you were engaged in serious financial crimes – that’s around $780 million. That on its own is a huge change. Our EPA would also administer laws around dangerous chemicals in Australia. You would know that we’ve got a lot of concerns around PFAS entering the environment, just as another example of the sort of thing you could get the Environment Protection Agency looking at.
Recently, I asked my department to do an audit of offsets that had been granted for previous projects, and we found massive noncompliance. Companies that had promised to do restoration work or had promised to buy another area of bushland. Here in the west what you’re doing is frequently finding new black cockatoo habitat. If you’ve got a project you need to offset it by finding new habitat for those endangered cockatoos. We found that there was massive noncompliance with those promises that businesses had made, ways that they would reduce the environmental impact of their projects. Again, a strong EPA on the job means that businesses have to keep the promises that they’ve made to reduce their environmental impact when they’re rolling out their new projects.
A strong EPA is something that Australia has never had. This is an Australian first, and it actually blows me away that anyone in the Greens political party would think that this is unimportant. This is something that the environment movement has been demanding for many, many years here in Australia. We’re prepared to do it. It’s on the table right now. They could sign up to that agreement right now. We’ve been talking about this since the laws were introduced in April in the House of Representatives. None of this is a surprise. All of the details are there in our Nature Positive Plan that was released when we first came into government. None of this is a surprise. They know what’s on the table.
And what I would say is that in the past the Greens and the Liberals have voted together to do things like block the carbon pollution reduction scheme. The Liberals blocked it because they didn’t want to do anything for the environment, they didn’t want to reduce carbon pollution. The Greens blocked it because they said it’s not enough. And what happened? Nothing happened. Nothing happened legislatively. 80 million extra tonnes of carbon pollution were released into the atmosphere because the Greens allowed the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
I have said from day one of this legislative reform process we will need compromise, we will need common sense. Everybody is going to have to give and take a little bit, and the idea that any party would vote this down because it’s not everything they want, I think would be a massive disappointment to Australians who want to see progress. They want to see a step forward. They want to see progress.
JOURNALIST: So in the next fortnight?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I hope so. I mean, the Senate runs itself. Unfortunately I don’t control the Senate, or we wouldn’t have any trouble getting the legislation through. But there’s a Senate report due to be tabled shortly, and I would say to every Senator, there are measures here that make life easier and more certain for business, and that means investment and jobs. And there are much stronger environmental protections here. Unless we look after nature better, it’s not going to be there in the way that it is now for our kids and grandkids. And I don’t think that’s an Australia that people really want to contemplate.
JOURNALIST: On recycling, how far behind the target of diverting 70 per cent of plastics into landfill by 2025 are we?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we came to government-- I think we were at about 16 per cent is what we inherited. We’ve committed to around 160 facilities; about 60 of those, from memory, are plastic specific. I think about 16 of them are up and running. So we’re making progress every day. But, you know, we started from a standing start, and that’s why I am so pleased that the state and territory governments have been so willing to work with us, including here in Western Australia. And that’s why I’m so grateful to companies like Veolia who are really taking on this scaling up. We need to invest in these types of facilities. We need to work on our plastics passport because companies need to know what they’re getting. If they are getting recycled plastic content for reuse in food grade packaging or medical grade packaging or any sort of packaging, they need to know the provenance of the recycled material they’re getting. So we need to have that whole system working.
We’re investing in the recycling. We’re investing in the plastics passport. We’re also investing in the design changes we need to make. 70 per cent of the waste in a product is locked into the design phase. We need to reduce the amount of virgin plastic we’re using. We need to reduce particularly problematic plastics, and we need to reduce the use of some of those particularly toxic chemicals. And that’s why we’re banning from the middle of next year the import – banning or severely restricting the import of a whole class of chemicals of concern that have turned up in our packaging way too often.
JOURNALIST: So what’s the current rate of plastics diverted?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I’d have to check what the current rate is. But we inherited around 16 per cent. So we’ve still got a long way to go. And I have to say, the packaging industry said from the very beginning that they weren’t going to meet the coalition’s targets because the coalition set the targets and didn’t map out a pathway to get there. You can’t just float targets and expect them to take care of themselves. And what we’re doing is working with the industry to invest to meet those targets – or meet better targets.
JOURNALIST: Can we expect an update, an announcement, imminently on your process for overhauling the federal cultural heritage laws, and will that include the one-stop shops the PM mentioned at Garma?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yes, absolutely. We are very aware that one of the areas where we need to improve – well, we need to improve the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act. The fact that tragedies like Juukan Gorge can happen in a way that is completely legal shows that there are substantial gaps in our cultural heritage laws. And one of the things that we need to do is say more clearly and demonstrate more clearly that we listen to who speaks for country. And that’s the process that we’re working through with the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance, to make sure that we have a system where the people who speak for country are properly consulted in the very early stages of the process rather than leaving it untill the end when change is much more difficult and expensive to make.
We’re also, of course, making sure that in the third tranche of our environmental laws, the national environmental standards, that include community consultation, that include standards around data collection. We also have a First Nations consultation standard in our new environment laws. That work is ongoing.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask, are you aware whether Ian Goodenough has joined the Labor Party in the last week?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No. That’s certainly not anything I know about it. He is a very nice fellow, and I know that he, sadly, has been disendorsed by the Liberal Party over here despite his hard work for his constituency. So, I don’t have any other knowledge than that.
JOURNALIST: It seems like he’s been courted.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, he’s a very nice man. He’s got a lot of friendships across the aisle. I know that he gets on very well with a number of Labor MPs. But I’d be very surprised if he joined the Labor Party.
JOURNALIST: Just following on from the Section 10 decision at McPhillamys recently, have you had much by way of consultation or engagement with the resources sector since coming over to WA?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I meet very many people from the resources sector, but not only the resources sector, when I’m here in WA. There is a very strong business community here, and many of them have got my phone number. So I get pretty frequent feedback on our legislative reforms, both in the environmental protection area and in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act reforms that we’re doing. And, you know, I welcome that. I think it’s really important that we continue to have a strong dialogue between the Labor Party and the business community.
And, I suppose, the strong message I would give is that we’re all for jobs. We’re all for a strong economy. And we can do that in a way that also protects the environment. You’ve asked about the McPhillamys Gold Mine proposal in New South Wales. That, of course, is not an environmental decision; it’s a decision about cultural heritage protection. That’s a project that covers 2,5000 hectares and I’ve said 400 hectares has to be protected. That’s where the tailings dam is going to be built on the head waters of the Belubula River. I’ve said there’s no problem with the gold mine going ahead. My decision doesn’t apply to the gold mine; my decision is that the tailings dump can’t be built on the head waters of the river. It’s about 16 per cent of the site that McPhillamys owns already. So they’ve told us that they’ve investigated four sites for the tailings dam. I certainly would urge them to have a look at some of those other sites they’ve investigated.
I point to the fact that their – I mean, the last time I checked their share price had risen by about 10 per cent, so I’m guessing that their shareholders and others think that there’s a way through here. It’s up to the company to come back with an alternate design for their tailings dam, and I can look at that very quickly if they do.
JOURNALIST: Do you believe them when they say it will take five to ten years to get the approvals –
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, that’s nonsense. Can I just say, on the approvals time, I have doubled on‑time approvals since becoming the minister. I have doubled on-time approvals. I recently approved a project in nine weeks because it was the right project in the right location. They’ve, you know, designed it so that they avoided, in this case, it was environmental impacts. We can do these things very quickly when the projects are designed right, to avoid unnecessary negative impacts on the environment. It's a great example of us working constructively with industry.
I’ve ticked off on more than 40 mining projects. You haven’t heard about them in the media. They’ve been uncontroversial because they've been designed right and ticked off, many of them with conditions to reduce environmental impacts or to protect cultural heritage. But that’s the system working well. That’s how the system can work. And I reiterate, I’ve doubled on-time approvals. We can get this stuff done, as long as project proponents are willing to avoid really poor outcomes for the environment or for First Nations people or for the local community.
JOURNALIST: Just – sorry, just on those other dam site options, I understand I think it’s three of the four either overlap or are in the site, the area, that you’ve said is a projected area, and the fourth one, perhaps, has worse environmental outcomes.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I’m not going to try and design their tailings dam in a press conference. This is a large company. They’ve got geologists and hydrologists and engineers available to them. If there’s $7 billion worth of gold in the ground, as they have suggested, it’s probably in their interests to put a bit of time and energy into looking at alternatives. But it’s up to them. It’s their project. It’s up to them.
ENDS
