PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (15:47): Today, I wish to speak about the upcoming ban on plastic shopping bags that will take effect on 1 May. I urge the state Rann Labor government to review its decision totally to ban these bags. I have been contacted by many constituents, some are shop owners and some are not, who have many concerns regarding the ban, and these range from shoplifting to health fears, in relation to putting meat products into the bags, and environmental concerns, in regard to the green bags breaking down. These issues, amongst others, have been discussed with me.

Drake Foodmarkets has said that it now has huge problems with shoplifters, as professional thieves use the plastic bags to fit in with other shoppers. The owner, Mr Roger Drake, said that it has created a shoplifting nightmare. Food microbiologist, Dr Connor Thomas, also warned that the green bags, which many shoppers are already using, could be bad for health because of the bacteria they can carry. A green bag may be used to carry meat and poultry, such as chicken or beef, and then used to carry raw vegetables, and this could lead to causing gastrointestinal illnesses, such as salmonella.

We all reacted quite negatively to the impact plastic bags were having on the environment, and the issue needed to be addressed. Banning these bags totally is an overreaction; rather, I think an educational process should be undertaken to promote alternatives and responsible disposal of the bags. Plastic bags are very convenient, and they are a product of modern technology. They are very light, very strong and very convenient; often, there is no alternative to use and certainly not a convenient one.

Many people, including me, use plastic bags as bin liners. I find it very handy to pull the plastic bag out of the bin and deposit it without having to handle any of the refuse inside. It is a very clean way of handling it. They can also be used to clean up the mess made by pets and to put wet towels in after visiting the pool or the beach, and the list goes on. We would all have a million uses for these plastic bags, and most of the time we use them several times over.

For those who do not reuse their plastic shopping bags in their home, unwanted bags can be disposed off in the recycle bin located at the front of many supermarkets or dropped at the local opportunity shop. Many reuse the bags, and I am sure that they would always be grateful for more. Some 4.5 million plastic bags are used by customers in Australia every year, of which 75 per cent are reused. Also, plastic makes up only 5 per cent of the landfill, and 50 per cent of that is plastic packaging, not bags. It makes the state Rann Labor government's current policy look like enormous overkill. I only wonder how much taxpayer revenue has been spent on implementing this ban and the policy that is out there.

I believe that people are reacting by stockpiling the soon-to-be illegal plastic bags. We in this house and the various committees all got carried away with the problem that plastic bags were creating in the waste stream. I was involved with the ERD Committee at the time, as was, I think, the minister for water resources. We undertook a waste management inquiry and saw the problems we were having with these plastic bags. So, there was a reaction, and this is the result of it.

Why did we not firstly try to solve the problem by making it illegal to put loose, unrestrained plastic bags into bins so that they would not blow around the countryside or into the sea and pose a threat to seals, dolphins and other sea creatures. I believe that we can now see what we have done. We are going to saddle members of the community with an inconvenience that they do not wish to have. I realised that we have only a few more days left to use these bags, and I have been to the supermarket and made other arrangements.

Like half the Australian adult population, I have also kept them all because I know that they will become illegal. I will be using them. I will certainly miss them, and I think that we have overreacted. I do not think it is too late: I believe that we should be able to bring back these bags and handle the problem in a different way. I hope that the government will listen to this, because we were all a part of this reaction. I think it is time for us to say, 'Hang on, we really haven't handled this very well.' Let us fix it up and put in place a common-sense measure so that people will not be so inconvenienced.