Hansard: Environmental Protection Amendment Bill 2010, Gardiner
Author: Philip Gardiner
Published on: 19-October-2010
On behalf of The Nationals, Phil speaks on the Environmental Protection Amendment Bill 2010 that seeks to impose tough penalties for illegal dumping of waste. The amendments also provide inspectors or authorised persons with the power to stop and inspect any vehicle or vessel in order to ascertain where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that an offence has been or is likely to be committed. At present Department of Environment and Conservation inspectors are unable to intercept trucks or vehicles with trailers entering or leaving reserves and state forests even where there are clear grounds for suspecting that dumping waste or pollution has occurred.
HON PHILIP GARDINER: On behalf of the Nationals I speak in favour of the bill. With the introduction of the landfill levy, which has substantially increased the cost of waste for consumers—constituents of local communities—there are behavioural consequences. I will not dwell too much on some of these matters because a lot of them have already been covered by earlier speakers. The behavioural consequences first try to encourage each of us to separate the waste we have in our homes and businesses so that it can be recycled. That is the carrot, if we like, for the behavioural consequence of actually doing something different as a result of the increased landfill levy. The collection of waste from constituents means a closer examination of how our plastics and glasses are separated into one bin, our papers into another bin and our putrescibles waste being dealt with as other household waste.
The building wastes are more complicated because it is much harder to recycle much of the building waste that results from industry. I was recently in London where one could see how new technology—that is part of the underlying plan of the landfill levy—can be used to deal with our waste. Australian technology is employed in London for some of its waste recycling. That waste technology came from New South Wales, in particular Sydney, where recycling of plastics was developed in advance of the 2000 Olympic Games. It is called closed-loop technology. The design of the plant that was used in Sydney was then sold and marketed by the Sydney operators. London purchased it and spent £25 million building a plant and applying the technology to recycle the different plastics.
It worried me where I live in Subiaco that I had to put the glass and different plastics into the one bin. I thought, “Why don’t we have two bins?” When I saw the closed-loop technology at work, I began to understand. As the waste goes along, the elevator air jets in that case—in future it will be lasers—separate the glass and the different plastics, be they milk–container plastic or coca cola–bottle plastic. They are different plastics by weight because different compounds of chemicals go into them and, therefore, purity is required to recycle them into the final product. That is a commercial operation in London that generates revenue. There are positives but one of the big positives we have to try to get from the landfill levy, which we went through when the landfill levy bill was considered, is what new plants are required to deal with the waste that is not being dealt with.
The second part of the behavioural consequence, of course, comes back to the stick. The stick in this case relates to that waste that people may consider taking outside the metropolitan area into regional areas where there are many, many places that this material can be dumped at no cost. It might be in trailer loads but more likely in truck loads. There is already evidence of dumping occurring in a shire about 140 kilometres north of Perth. We need a bill of this kind that provides for a fine that is sufficiently material to hurt people who are caught. The question I would like the minister to answer is: where will the money from fines go, if and when they are collected? The thing I am even more concerned about is whether we will ever catch anyone, because, as I think Hon Robin Chapple said, dumping is very hard to police when it is taken by truck at night to all the little places outside the metropolitan area. Who will be there watching? As the minister’s second reading speech suggests, we are relying on Department of Environment and Conservation inspectors to police this. As everyone in the country knows, we in the country do not rely on inspectors to police things; it is fellow neighbours and farmers—Neighbourhood Watch, except in the country it is called Rural Watch. They are the people who will see the lights of vehicles going down the roads at odd times of the night and wonder what is going on. They may go out and investigate at some risk to themselves. People often go down the roads shooting kangaroos et cetera. It is common for people in rural areas to try to look out for themselves because they cannot rely on police, certainly not DEC inspectors, to be out at different times of the day or night watching to see whether people are illegally dumping material in these small but quite numerous expanses of government or local council land, or even on the roadside. I have a question about whether any fines will arise out of this. Just one fine may be enough, but we know from experience in other areas that one person being caught is not the deterrent we would all like it to be. That is the question on which I would like to hear a response from the minister.
The Nationals agree with the sentiment of the legislation; it is the practicality of it about which we might be a little concerned. Thank you very much.
