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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-16 Daily Xml
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Levitzke, Mr V.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:52): It gives me great pleasure today to be able to speak on the career of Vaughan Levitzke PSM, the Chief Executive of Green Industries SA, who is retiring on 30 June 2021 after 17 years at the helm of Green Industries SA and its predecessor organisation, Zero Waste SA.

Vaughan has worked tirelessly for the South Australian government and the South Australian people since entering the Public Service in 1978 as an ecologist with the Department for Environment. He served an impressive 43 years in government and, on 12 March, he handed over the reins as chief executive to commence a period of well-earned long service leave prior to his formal departure as an employee of the government at the end of June this year.

Looking back on his career, Vaughan spent 10 years with the South Australian EPA before being appointed the Acting Chief Executive of Zero Waste SA in July 2003 during the agency's establishment phase, and was subsequently appointed by the Governor in 2004 as its inaugural chief executive.

With an initial staff complement of six people, Vaughan built Zero Waste SA from the ground up to become a well-respected, innovative and effective organisation and positioned South Australia as a national and perhaps international leader in recycling and waste management and, in more recent times, the circular and the green economy. This is recognised across the world.

As an expert chief executive in waste management reform and policy, Vaughan served six ministers for environment and provided evidence before several interstate, national and state parliamentary inquiries and committees relating to waste, recycling and container deposit legislation.

In 2015, an investiture was held at Government House in the presence of His Excellency the Hon. Hieu Van Le AO and Mrs Lan Le where Vaughan received the Public Service Medal for outstanding public service in the area of waste management reform and policy. Under Vaughan's leadership, South Australia's first ever statutory statewide five-year waste strategy was developed, lasting from 2005 to 2010. The fourth in the series, the 2020 to 2025 waste strategy, was just recently released in December 2020.

Throughout his tenure as the chief executive of the agency, Vaughan and his team have provided a range of programs and activities that provide support to key stakeholders, including local government, the waste and resource recovery sector, the business community and the people of South Australia. Vaughan was instrumental in the transition of Zero Waste SA to Green Industries in 2016 with a renewed focus on the principles of the circular economy whilst retaining a strong emphasis on resources productivity.

Vaughan was elected the people's choice in the biennial WME magazine leaders list in 2012. Adelaide and its waste and recycling systems were highlighted in the UN Habitat report 'Solid waste management in the world cities' in 2010. In that publication the governance arrangements and outcomes achieved are highly rated and this all comes back to Vaughan's impressive, humble style of leadership.

The recognition that Vaughan has received extends beyond South Australia's borders. He has forged an excellent relationship with key players at an international level, including with the United Nations. He was Australia's only invitee to participate in the United Nations Centre for Sustainable Development Inter-sessional Conference, Building Partnerships for Moving Towards Zero Waste, which was held in Tokyo, Japan, in 2011. He was subsequently invited by the UN to advise on earthquake and tsunami reconstruction for sustainable communities in 2012.

It was from there that Vaughan came back to South Australia determined to ensure that our state was prepared to deal with disaster waste management should the need arise, and that need did arise during my time as the minister with the fires at the end of 2019 and the end of 2020. I think we really saw Vaughan and his agency come into their own as they stepped up to help the fire-affected communities in the Adelaide Hills and, of course, on Kangaroo Island, in bringing to life the disaster waste management framework and reaching out to help those communities in the most impressive way.

It has been a great pleasure to meet with Vaughan on a regular basis in my role as the state's environment minister to learn from him and to build up my experience in this sector during the last three years. Vaughan's leadership, his humility and his character are great traits. He will be greatly missed in the Public Service and I wish him a very happy retirement.

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