E&OE….
Topics: Ministerial Roundtable, plastic shopping bags, microbeads, election timing
TOM ELLIOTT:
Mr Hunt, good afternoon.
GREG HUNT:
And good afternoon Tom.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay, so you've just been talking to your state counterparts about this very issue. Have you banned plastic bags?
GREG HUNT:
No. What has happened…
TOM ELLIOTT:
Are you about to ban them?
GREG HUNT:
What we see at the moment is that Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland are all looking at options for phasing down bags. There are different ways of doing it.
So far, four out of our eight states and territories have taken major steps along this road.
And the reason why is because there are about four billion bags a year in Australia and about eight million tonnes of plastic waste goes into the marine environment.
So that's having an impact on fish, turtle populations – 40 per cent of turtles in the Morton Bay area have plastics in their – have ingested plastics – so it's a real issue for the marine environment and the marine population.
TOM ELLIOTT:
I get that, but you're the Federal Environment Minister. If you want to put a stop to it, why don't you just ban them across Australia?
GREG HUNT:
No it’s not exactly a power that exists with the Federal Environment Minister. You work with the states.
And that's why the states have done it, state by state – so you have South Australia and the NT, you have Tasmania and the ACT that have all taken steps.
And right now, what's happened is that New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland are working together to try to come up with an approach to significantly reduce the number of waste bags, and therefore plastic waste, that goes into the marine environment.
TOM ELLIOTT:
But I don't understand, if you have no power in this jurisdiction, why talk about it at all?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I think that there is a very important role for the Federal Minister and what we have announced today is that – and this is just the way that the Federal Product Stewardship Act works – is that we will move to phase down and then ban, if it's not done voluntarily, these tiny little plastic balls called microbeads which are embedded in certain types of shampoos and facial scrubs…
TOM ELLIOTT:
Yeah I'm aware of those.
GREG HUNT:
…and you can have up to 100,000 of them in a single facial scrub and they go straight into the marine environment. So, that happens to be within my powers, the other is within my influence.
TOM ELLIOTT:
So what – so if plastic is in microscopic balls you can ban it, but if it's in the form of a bag, you can suggest to ban it but you can't actually ban it?
GREG HUNT:
Yeah, that is the case. And so one of my jobs is to make laws, another one is to help try to influence the shape of outcomes around the country.
And what do I want to see? I want to see less plastic waste going in, clogging the marine environment, where we have turtle populations that are damaged – I saw at Taronga Zoo today a turtle that they had saved that had lost one of its flippers to marine plastic waste – and then we have fish right around the country that are ingesting and sea birds around the country that are ingesting the waste that flows in…
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay…
GREG HUNT:
… there are some very good alternatives. It's not about an outright overall ban, it's about working – as your previous caller said from South Australia – with the community to decrease the amount of waste that goes into the water.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Alright, but I mean we've got different laws around the place. I mean, for example, we broadcast to Albury Wodonga. So, if you're on the Wodonga side which is Victoria, you could have – plastic bags are okay, across the border you're in Albury, plastic bags not okay.
I mean, wouldn't it make sense to have just one policy across Australia?
GREG HUNT:
Well, that's currently the situation with the South Australian and Victorian borders so you've described it perfectly …
TOM ELLIOTT:
Yeah exactly. Right so…
GREG HUNT:
…and that's precisely what's happening. The purpose of these meetings is to try to bring those states that are not taking steps in line with those that are.
TOM ELLIOTT:
So, what's – you're a Victorian MP. What do you think is going to happen in this state?
GREG HUNT:
My impression is, from what I heard from Anthony Carbines – who's the Victorian Labor Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment – that they are likely to head down some significant approach to reducing plastic bag waste.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Alright, well, that's interesting. Now, the press is all in a lather today about this idea that we're going to have an election called the day after the Budget so in the – I think what, first or second week of May and then have an actual election around about 2 July.
Is this true, is that what we're going to do?
GREG HUNT:
Oh look, there has certainly been no decision made on election timing.
And the Prime Minister, I think, has repeatedly said that his preference is to go in about September when we have the full three years but there are other options of one or two months earlier – so 34 out of 36 months of term.
You'd always prefer to go longer term, if you reach a point with the Senate where it becomes unworkable, then that would be an option.
But truly, and I can say this absolutely, there haven't been any decisions and our working assumption and ordinary preference is to go longer term – but you have to have other options.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay, but you've – I've read that you could have a double dissolution based on the debate and whether or not to reimpose the building control or a construction activity control or what if parts of the Budget are rejected?
I mean, are you just going to pick an issue and then have a double dissolution, is that the idea?
GREG HUNT:
No, it's a constitutional question and there is – in the Registered Organisations Commission Bill, which is about union accountability – already a qualifying trigger and there may well be an additional one in terms of the Building and Construction Industry Commission.
TOM ELLIOTT:
But does it really come down to just popularity? So if you think that your poll numbers are going to slide between say, I don't know, July and September you'll go early, but if you think they're on the up, you'll go later. Surely that's what it comes down to.
GREG HUNT:
No, it actually doesn't. It comes down to the question of where – either way, we are full term or exceptionally close to full term and as a consequence, the only issue there – again and our preference is to have an ordinary election in the ordinary course of events but we're only talking here about a matter of weeks or two months at the most. It's about…
TOM ELLIOTT:
So if it's early it's not actually early, not really.
GREG HUNT:
Well, it would be 36 out of – 36 months of the parliamentary term but that would be about the fact that the Senate is not allowing a fundamental platform in our legislation which is about cleaning up the workplace, cleaning up the ability for people to act productively and making sure that there isn't a workplace environment where there is systemic intimidation.
So, these things go to the heart of Australia's productivity.
However, let me reemphasise, the goal is always to get things passed and I know in our portfolio, we've been fortunate to get seven major pieces of legislation through the Senate by working with any combination of the ALP, the crossbench for a significant number, and on one occasion with the Greens.
So you can work with the Senate, but the question is whether fundamental elements are denied.
TOM ELLIOTT:
We'll leave it there. Greg Hunt Federal Environment Minister. Thank you for your time.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks.
(ENDS)