Animal Welfare

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:08): Supplementary: does the minister share the disappointment of consumers and constituents, and indeed the Greens, that the promised ban on animals being tested on for cosmetics in this country is not actually going to be delivered until 2019, as revealed in the budget papers, as opposed to being delivered on this year, as was promised at the federal election?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:09): The Greens are attempting to lead me down a path of condemning the federal government, one that I am happy to jump onto. I thank the honourable member for it. We do have some difficulties with a federal government which calls together environment ministers. They have actually downgraded environment ministers' meetings. They are no longer even ministerial councils answerable at COAG.

Instead, environment ministers have to get together and have a coffee catch-up to try to influence the federal environment minister's agenda. States come to the federal environment minister with great ideas about working together. For example, banning plastic microbeads in cosmetics. Both New South Wales and South Australia have raised this with the federal government and their response has been, 'Well, they are all great ideas, but we have no interest in providing national leadership. We will let you get on with it yourselves.' That's what the states have to do.

Unfortunately, in the absence of federal government leadership, these things take a lot more time to organise. But, with assiduous action by members of the public and by state and territory jurisdictions, we can occasionally prod the government to be a little bit embarrassed about their lack of inactivity. They make these pronouncements about things coming down the track. As the Hon. Tammy Franks has noted, they make the promise at a federal election and then squib on it and say, 'You will see it come in two years' time.' Well, let's see in 2019 whether in fact it does come through. If it does it will only be because of one reason and that's because there has been a federal election and Labor will be in federal government.