Motions

Fast Fashion

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:00): I move:

1. That a select committee be established to inquire into and report on the environmental, economic and social impact of fast fashion in South Australia, with particular reference to:

(a) the volume and nature of fast fashion items being imported into South Australia;

(b) the environmental impact of fast fashion, including its production, transport, and disposal;

(c) the sustainability of current fast fashion consumption and waste practices;

(d) the impact on South Australian retailers, including local and ethical fashion businesses;

(e) the financial and operational burden on charities, particularly in relation to the disposal costs of donated clothing and textile goods that cannot be resold or reused;

(f) legislative and policy responses in other jurisdictions, both nationally and internationally;

(g) potential legislative, regulatory, or policy measures that could be implemented in South Australia to mitigate the negative impacts of fast fashion and promote more sustainable practices; and

(h) any other related matters.

2. That this council permits the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication, as it sees fit, of any evidence or documents presented to the committee prior to such evidence being presented to the council.

Textile waste is piling up at an alarming rate. Ultrafast fashion is flooding our market with low-quality, short-lived clothing that ends up in landfill far too quickly. It is an environmental crisis that is accelerating climate change, damaging ecosystems and placing an unfair burden on future generations, let alone those countries around the world that have been left to pick up the mess.

As members of parliament, it is incumbent upon us to make moves to address the single biggest issue of our time, as well as the human cost borne by exploited workers far from our shores. That is why I am proposing a select committee into the environmental, economic and social impacts of fast fashion in this state.

South Australia has a proud history of environmental leadership. Our container deposit scheme showed that smart policy can change behaviour, drive industry innovation and reduce waste at scale. Only this year, the state government supported, to the tune of $100,000, the Circular Fashion Initiative, a new program launched by the South Australian fashion industry to provide local fashion businesses with vital resources, education and practical support to transition towards sustainable and circular operations.

It is essential that we encourage circular fashion models, where materials are reused, recycled and repurposed. We need to support sustainable and ethical brands and make consumers aware of the far-reaching impacts that buying a cheap and disposable garment can have. According to Recycle Right, an estimated 6,000 kilos of textiles and clothing are dumped in landfill in Australia every 10 minutes.

Charities are overwhelmed. Only 1 per cent of total collected disposed garments are actually recycled; 100 billion garments are produced globally each year, with 33 per cent going to landfill within the first year of purchase. Each item we buy, we wear on average six to seven times. Over 200,000 tonnes of clothing end up in landfills around Australia every year, where textiles can take hundreds of years to decompose.

The UN Environment Programme states that the fast fashion industry is the second biggest consumer of water and is responsible for about 10 per cent of global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. A single cotton shirt, just like the one I am wearing today, requires around 700 gallons of water to produce—a single cotton shirt—and a staggering 2,000 gallons of water are required to make a pair of jeans.

Dyeing and finishing processes in textile manufacturing generate large amounts of wastewater, with chemicals and pollutants contaminating and drying up local water sources, impacting ecosystems and human health. And here we are, talking about a desal plant and algal bloom.

Seamless, an Australian government-backed initiative aimed at creating a circular clothing economy, estimates 1.5 billion new items of clothing were sold in Australia last year. Seamless is on a mission to achieve a circular clothing economy in Australia by 2030, whereby materials are reused, recycled and repurposed.

Then there is the appalling human story. Fast fashion, we know, is built on speed and volume. Garments are designed to be bought on impulse, worn a handful of times and discarded. That model pressures suppliers to cut corners. In too many factories, wages are depressed, hours are excessive, and health and safety remains precarious. When the fashion cycle resets every few weeks, risks and volatility cascade down the supply chain to the most vulnerable: young women, migrant workers and informal subcontractors. The industry overseas is rife with reports of abuse against textile workers and we wear those brands each and every day.

The Australian Human Rights Institute notes that in labour markets throughout Asia, where large corporations manufacture their products, such as Bangladesh and China, exploitative working conditions, discrimination, harassment, child labour, forced labour and unsafe workplaces are not uncommon; in fact, they are quite the opposite. In Asia alone, the textile export industry employs more than 60 million workers, where the risk of human rights abuse is high.

In 2013 in Bangladesh, more than 1,100 textile workers were killed in a factory building collapse. In Asia, considered the garment factory of the world, female employees are over-represented among the sector's lowest paid workers. While many brands have improved their codes of conduct, opaque subcontracting and limited traceability continue to mask exploitation.

As consumers and indeed as legislators, we cannot pretend that a bargain at the check-out is unrelated to conditions in the cutting room, and I say that as a fashion victim. I love clothes and I love shoes, way more than I should, but I know how much I am contributing to this problem and I am in the process of educating myself because every time I see those rivers washing up with tonnes of clothes I feel guilty. I actually feel guilty and my staff know that for the past six months I have bombarded them with rivers washing up with clothes in countries and saying this is what we are doing. The fact that I have just said that fashion creates more carbon emissions than all international flights across the globe and maritime shipping combined should jolt all of us.

South Australia may host these factories, but it is our markets—it is people like me—that fuel them. Our public contracts can influence them and our reputation is tied to the standards we enable. According to the Australian Human Rights Institute, the fast fashion market in this country is valued at—get ready, Mr President—$2.3 billion, with the average Australian buying 56 items of clothing per year. I reckon I buy a few more than that. I am being perfectly honest here. I think this is the time for honesty.

The Hon. E.S. Bourke: Well, you can't mislead the parliament.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: No, I cannot mislead the parliament. While fast fashion offers consumers trendy new clothes at lower prices and rapidly changing options, there are severe impacts on human rights and the environment driven by cheap and rapid manufacturing in overseas factories.

Here in South Australia, we can and must do better, if only for the sake of our charities that are actually bearing the brunt of this problem. Supporting local industries is one step, but there is a much bigger issue and that is effectively why I have sought to establish this committee. I am open to any ideas that anyone has about how else we can address this issue—I thought the Hon. Rob Simms would be listening with such interest today—looking at the true cost of fast fashion, including the environmental damage, textile waste and the impact of quick and cheap overseas manufacturing that undercuts local jobs and businesses.

The French government this year voted to pass legislation taxing ultrafast fashion brands and banning ultrafast fashion advertising, largely aimed at Chinese-based retailers such as Shein and Temu, and there are two reasons why they did that. As soon as that debate started—and I followed the French debate with much interest—I came back and asked if we could do the same here. Obviously, we have issues with competition and constitutional validity issues, which is why at a state level it is more difficult to do what France has done.

Regardless of whether the French government had its own vested interests—and it very much does, because if you think of our designer brands that cost an arm and a leg and have very lucrative markets, they are replicated within seconds of hitting runways. Every time a new handbag, a new dress, a new skirt or a new pair of shorts hits the runway, you can bet your bottom dollar that it has already been replicated and is available on these sorts of online cheap outlets.

It is not about telling people what they can wear; I certainly do not let anyone tell me what to wear, and I would not expect that we would want that to occur anywhere. It is about ensuring that our clothes, the clothes on our backs, are not woven with exploitation, excessive waste and avoidable pollution. It is about fiscal prudence. Every truckload of disposable garments that reaches landfill is a bill that someone must pay. I really urge members to go and look at those pictures. Those pictures alone should, as I said, jolt all of us, because we are all contributing to this problem.

As I said at the outset, we produce 100 billion garments each year, and 33 per cent of that is going to landfill each year. One per cent of what we provide to our charities is actually what will be repurposed and recycled. The rest is going to the dump, and it is ending up on the shores of countries that are already struggling with their own issues in terms of climate change and environmental damage but also the clothing that ends up on their shores because we do not know what to do with it. The facts again: just one cotton T-shirt requires 700 gallons of water, and it is 2,000 gallons for a pair of jeans. Go and count all the jeans in your wardrobe and then look at how much we are actually contributing to climate emissions in this country.

This is a global phenomenon. It is not something that is limited to South Australia, but I am deadset certain there are small things that we could be doing in SA, just like we did when we introduced the container deposit scheme, just like we did when we banned plastics, just like we did with the little soy sauce fish. We know what the impacts of all those things are on our environment, but it would appear they pale into insignificance compared to the impact that fashion is having, fast fashion in particular.

I am not suggesting we ban brands or clothing or tell people what to wear, but I am urging us all to reconsider the decisions we make around clothing, and I am urging this parliament to consider what other options are available to it in terms of repurposing, recycling and reusing and ensuring that less of that clothing ends up in landfill. They are staggering statistics. The next time I hear anyone talk about climate change and the impacts of things on the climate in this place or elsewhere and they do not mention fast fashion, they will get a curt reminder from me about the impact that we each are having on the environment each and every day just by virtue of getting up and getting dressed and buying into the consumer world of fast fashion.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.