E&OE….
Topics: Liberal Party, reducing plastic packaging waste
TOM ELLIOTT:
Greg Hunt, good afternoon.
GREG HUNT:
And good afternoon Tom.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Now first, The Age is reporting today that seven Cabinet Ministers have withdrawn their support for Tony Abbott. Are you one of them?
GREG HUNT:
No. And frankly I think the story seems to be ludicrous. My view is very simple, that you just get on with the job in life. And for me, I’ve been involved in dealing with Antarctic partnerships, trying to protect the Antarctic for the long-term, working with the States on cleaning up our cities and our waterways, really practical things, working on the Barrier Reef. I think it’s just ludicrous.
TOM ELLIOTT:
So it’s funny, when you said Antarctic partnerships, I thought you meant you were perhaps trying to get into the ear of some people’s marriage counselling, and trying to get relationships to work again.
GREG HUNT:
We offer all services.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay now and another issue that’s popped up today, and it’s not a new one, but it’s as though people have just noticed that Tony Abbott’s Chief of Staff, Peta Credlin, is the wife of Federal Director of the Liberal Party, Brian Loughnane. Again, is it problematic having those two being married to each other?
GREG HUNT:
Look, in a world where women are rightly able to aspire to any job in the land, the fact that somebody’s married is a ridiculous nineteenth-century approach to work. People all around the country have situations where they may have a spouse or a partner, and frankly both of them have done a great job. I think Peta’s been in the job for half a decade, Brian Loughnane’s been in the job for the best part of a decade and everybody manages it professionally. I don’t think it’s right, frankly, to focus on staff.
TOM ELLIOTT:
No, I agree.
GREG HUNT:
People should be focusing on us. If they want to have a shot at me, or have a shot at the PM, or have a shot at another Member of Parliament or Cabinet, that’s fair. But having a go at staff, it’s not the right thing.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I agree. Look, if people want to have a go at Tony Abbott, have a go at Tony Abbott, but to have a go at his advisers is wrong. Okay, more important issues. Now I understand as the Federal Environment Minister you’ll be meeting with your State counterparts this week – are you going to ban plastic bags?
GREG HUNT:
Well what we’re going to do is work towards a phase out of what are called non-biodegradable bags around the country. That means that each State will have the opportunity, and I’ll be encouraging them, to phase out non-biodegradable bags.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay, now when you say non-biodegradable, now most shops have non-biodegradable bags. I mean if you go shopping and you buy something, I’m not talking about the supermarkets here I’m talking about most other retailers, are we going to ban those bags entirely?
GREG HUNT:
Well my goal is to get an agreement with the States where each one will move voluntarily to a phase out. It’s a little bit hard under Federal law to do that, but you can use the bully pulpit of the national role to make sure that we get rid of these non-biodegradable bags. Sadly they’re more prevalent than you may think, and it’s been an unhappy surprise to me to discover that they’re still quite common, and of course they…
TOM ELLIOTT:
Are there other country …
GREG HUNT:
… have a big impact on waterways, and a big impact in landfills.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Yeah. Are there other countries where they’ve been banned?
GREG HUNT:
Look in parts of Europe I think there are bans in place, I understand there are parts of the United States, and in Australia four jurisdictions – the ACT, Northern Territory, South Australia, and Tasmania – have already put in place very strong regulations in relation to the supply of light-weight plastic bags.
So I think we can get Victoria on board, I’m hopeful Victoria will come on board, I’m hopeful that New South Wales, and Queensland, and WA will come on board. And this would be a really important step.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Are biodegradable bags more expensive than non-biodegradable ones?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I think over time we can make sure there’s zero cost, it’s just about using the right materials. And I haven’t seen any problems, concerns, reports out of the ACT or the Northern Territory, South Australia, or Tasmania, I remain to be corrected, but it’s working well in those jurisdictions and I think it should be able to work in Victoria.
Yes, let’s give people time, I think that’s fair enough, but these bags, if they’re not dealt with, will remain in our waterways literally for potentially decades. They end up in the gut of fish, of- they have an impact on our wetlands, they end up in landfill or blowing around, birds can digest them. So it’s really a very significant environment issue and it’s one we can deal with.
TOM ELLIOTT:
What about other plastics though? I mean what about, I don’t know, plastic toys for example, they’re non-biodegradable as well. So, would you outlaw all plastics which don’t break up in the ground?
GREG HUNT:
No. No. Not at this stage. The problem with bags is there are so many of them, and of course they move so easily, just with a little puff of wind they’re off and away. The other thing that we really do want to work with – and they’re single-use of course – the other thing we really do want to work with are what are called microbeads, or microplastics.
These are tiny little beads that are often in- whether it’s toothpaste, whether it’s in facial scrubs, it’s become a bit of an issue over the last couple of years, and I hadn’t known about it, I’ve learnt a lot more about it, it’s one of these things that you do learn in this job. And they go into waterways, they can be a millimetre or they can be a few microns, they can become ingested by fish, get into the food chain, become ingested by people, or just have a negative impact.
And in the United States you’ve had a series of jurisdictions where they have already been banned, and what I want to do is make sure that in Australia these products or abrasives that are added to certain cleaning products for humans are not part of our future, that we are working to phase them out, stop their use, ensure that they aren’t part of our system.
And what I see there is that in the United States, again, some of the States there have been able to ban them. I think we can get an agreement to work to a phase out, and ideally we can bring the industry on board so as it’s done gently rather than through force. But this is something that can build up in the environment, have a really toxic effect, and we just need to deal with it. It’s our watch now and it’s time to do it.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Alright, calls for Greg Hunt, Federal Environment Minister, in a moment. Should we ban non-biodegradable plastic bags? There’s a lot of them, we all use them.
Intermission
TOM ELLIOTT:
Twelve to five. The Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt is with us and in discussion with his State counterparts this week. They might ban a lot of plastic bags, in particular the non-biodegradable variety. Paul, good afternoon.
CALLER PAUL:
Yeah, good afternoon Tom, good afternoon Greg. Look, I don’t argue against the biodegradable bags, but look spinach, lettuce, cucumber, capsicum, tomatoes, carrots; they’re all wrapped in plastic now. All that stuff used to be loose.
I mean, it’s sort of going to be counter-reactive sort of thing to – if you get rid of the bags and yet, every time I go down to the market there’s more and more things wrapped in plastic.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Mr Hunt, Paul makes a good point, because these days the supermarkets want everything packaged rather than loose, because it’s quicker to scan through rather than weighing things and having different amounts. Now, would you go and speak to the supermarkets and tell them to stop wrapping things in non-biodegradable plastic, if indeed that’s what they do?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I’m very happy to work with the supermarkets and Paul does make a good point. I don’t want to be a heavy-handed sort of Federal cop, I don’t think that’s the role and nor do we actually have the powers to do that.
But you can, as I say, be a real force to try to bring about change. So it’s about reducing the volume of disposable plastic. That’s the problem – where things are used once, turfed into the system, but they hang around for years if not decades, and so we can have an impact on this.
TOM ELLIOTT:
In Germany, I understand, it’s illegal to have surplus packaging. So, for example, you can’t even put a tube of toothpaste in a box like we do here and what’s happened is the Germans have come up with innovative one-layer of packaging that stacks up so that you don’t need to wrap up toothpaste or other products in something else.
I mean, I don’t know whether – but I think that is being – they do do it in a heavy-handed manner, surprisingly, the Germans.
GREG HUNT:
Well one of the things I’d like to do, coming out of the meeting with the States on Thursday, is to see if we can have a retailers meeting – whether you call it a retailers summit on reducing packaging. We’re working on a follow up on the National Packaging Covenant side of things.
What does that mean? It’s about reducing the amount of surplus material, reducing the amount of just waste packaging and I think we can make dramatic steps on this. So, this Thursday’s the day. I hope that the Victorian Minister, the Queensland Minister, that some of these new Ministers will be supportive and it’s a chance to actually work cooperatively across Federal-State boundaries, across party lines, to say – let’s reduce the waste.
And to be fair, many retailers have indicated they want to help. They want to be part of the solution. You do need the Federal leadership to say okay guys, it’s time, no more talk, let’s get on and reduce waste packaging.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Paul, thank you very much for the call. Mr Hunt, good luck with the meeting on Thursday, we will watch the outcome with great interest.
GREG HUNT:
Thank very much Tom.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Greg Hunt there, Federal Environment Minister. He’ll join us again in a fortnight.
(ENDS)