Waste Management

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (15:11): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Will the minister update the house on how local waste management businesses and regional communities are benefiting from the state government's $12.4 million response package to the China National Sword policy?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:11): I thank the member for Flinders for his question. Many members in this house would know, and I have been able to update us on a number of occasions, that the China sword policy created particular challenges for the waste management sector here in South Australia. The government really did see this crisis, as it was described by some, as offering a real opportunity for South Australia's waste management sector.

We do know it's a sector that has a substantial reputation, nationally and internationally, for leadership—it has done for many decades—and so we saw it as an opportunity to leverage new investment in the waste management sector, to drive innovation and to grow the waste management sector, to grow that reputation of foreign leadership and to continue that leadership. With a crisis such as was experienced when China decided that it would not take our plastics and paper from not only Australia but from across the Western world, it was a particular shock to the industry.

What eventuated was that this government made a decision to establish a $12.4 million assistance package targeted largely at the waste management industry. We were very focused on saying that this would be about industry development, that this would be a stimulus for the waste management industry and that any assistance we would give to the local government sector, which had made particular decisions based on waste being seen as a commodity that had been contracted for sale, would be targeted at regional communities. Of course, we provided half a million dollars on a regional transportation subsidy to regional communities.

I am aware the councils within the member for Flinders' electorate have benefited from that. But the member for Flinders' specific question was about how we have used our $12.4 million fund to provide assistance to businesses. I am very pleased to say that just a few days ago we were able to announce that a portion of that funding was provided to waste management sector businesses in the form of grants to assist with innovation practices and projects.

In fact, $3.245 million—which is around about half the fund we were setting aside for grants and loans—has been provided to the industry, and that has occurred across 17 particular projects. Those projects are found across the state, not just in metropolitan Adelaide but also in regional communities. We know that regional communities, because of the tyranny of distance and transporting waste, are particularly vulnerable to changes in the waste management sector, and that can lead to particular costs being handed on to local councils and obviously ratepayers and businesses that rely on the services.

I am pleased to say that the Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority was provided with $250,000 of funding, that YCA Recycling, located at Wingfield, was provided with $301,000 of funding, and that Green Triangle Recyclers, a significant regional waste services provider located in Mount Gambier, was provided with $425,000 of funding. That money is going directly towards the waste management sector, directly stimulating jobs growth in that sector.

We know it is a growth sector for our state. We have a reputation in that area, and we are not going to let the China sword situation knock that industry back. We are going to use this opportunity to build it up.