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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-10-15 Daily Xml
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Centre State Food Service

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:41): My question is to the Minister for Climate, Environment and Water. Is the minister confident that regional business was provided sufficient support during the transition and the removal of the last tranche of single-use plastics? With your leave and that of the house, sir, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: Centre State Food Service distributors, in my electorate, were initially advised that they could complete selling products that had been ordered prior to the phase-out date, but that advice was then reversed and they were left with five to six pallets worth of materials that they cannot sell. They were also advised that some products were to be phased out, only for that advice to be reversed and now they are back available for sale.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (14:42): I thank the member for the question—an issue he has raised at some length with me in a piece of correspondence fairly recently. I think we need to deal a little bit with the Centre State Food question. More generally, am I satisfied with the extent of correspondence and information that has been provided? I have no reason not to be.

Green Industries South Australia (GISA) has demonstrated the extent to which they have consulted with not only the representative bodies but also they have carefully curated a list of contacts of food businesses across the state that they have used. As I say, I have no reason to think that that form of information hasn't been useful and to the point.

However, the member has raised an issue that has been raised with him, as he should do, with a local business, Centre State Food Service, which I think is a subsidiary of Galipo Foods, which I am not sure is just South Australian or a larger entity but it is larger than Centre State Food Service. Centre State Food Service is on the mailing list; they have been for a number of years and in that sense received the information that was being provided over time, none of which said that you could hold on to stock and use it after the deadline; all of which said, unless I am presented with an alternative, that once the deadline is reached, that's the end.

I think there is some question about whether Centre State Food Service always looked at their email. The department has spoken immediately on receiving the letter and reached out to that organisation and a particular person who has responsibility made sure that her contact details are now specifically on the list given that the general email wasn't always being looked at, as we understand it.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the communications, that has left this organisation with some pallets of packaging that they are currently not able to use. That is a challenge for them. Once we have a ban, we can't simply allow for some businesses to use some products and some others. We have to have some consistency. This has been coming for a couple of years, this ban date. They are able to contact their supplier and perhaps get a refund. It is possible, given that not all states are doing exactly what we are doing, that they will be able to use those pallets elsewhere. I believe we have given that advice, but I also give it via you.

There is a question about whether there has been a reversal of a decision. There was a slight reversal of a decision based on customer and food provider experience, which was that we allowed the square plastic PET to continue to be used for now—clear, because that's what can be recycled—for hot soup. They prefer to use a round bowl rather than a square but the round bowl of the compostable material for very hot food and soup is not suitable so we have now allowed an exemption for hot soup.

Yes, there has been a slight change, responding to a concern that was raised with us. We are always willing and prepared to do that. Similarly, an exemption has been granted for hot gravy, which I believe is a KFC product. I shocked some of my colleagues by being pretty ignorant about that, but apparently it is potato and gravy and so we have made sure there is an exemption. We are all trying get to a place where we are providing the most green, the least wasteful products, but we are also not here to provide dangerous products for people to use.

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