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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
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Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Repeal Bill

Second Reading

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (16:02): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008, or, as is more easily understood, the plastic bags act, bans lightweight, single-style plastic shopping bags that are less than 35 microns in thickness. South Australia led the nation in the phase-out of lightweight plastic shopping bags when the act came into force on 4 May 2009 under the Rann Labor government.

The Malinauskas government is extending prohibitions on single-use plastic shopping bags by utilising the more modern and more broadly scoped Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act 2020, or the single-use plastics act. This strengthens efforts to remove plastic film shopping bags of any thickness from circulation in South Australia by broadening the scope of prohibited plastic shopping bags. This includes plastic shopping bags already banned under the plastic bags act, making the plastic bags act redundant and therefore in need of repeal.

The Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Repeal Bill 2024 seeks to repeal the plastic bags act and the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Regulations 2022. In summary, the plastic bags act bans retailers from providing a customer with a lightweight, checkout-style plastic bag, which is defined as a carry bag that includes handles and comprises (in whole or in part) polyethylene with a thickness of less than 35 microns. Biodegradable bags and heavyweight plastic bags are not banned under the plastic bags act.

The Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Regulations 2022 set out signage requirements in relation to the banning of lightweight checkout-style plastic shopping bags from a prescribed day, being 4 May 2009. The prescribed day implemented a transitional period between commencement of the legislation on 1 January 2009 and the application of offence provisions.

The newly amended Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Regulations 2021, or single-use plastics regulations, under the single-use plastics act now include plastic shopping bags already banned under the plastic bags act, as well as banning all plastic film bags, no matter the thickness, and plastic laminated paper shopping bags.

The current plastic bags act includes an exemption for Australian Standard (AS) certified compostable shopping bags. This exemption has been included in the single-use plastics regulations, as well as additional exemptions for commonly used reusable shopping bags made from plastic materials, such as nylon, polyester, woven polypropylene and non-woven polypropylene.

Research commissioned by Green Industries SA in July 2023 found that 98 per cent of South Australian survey respondents already own reusable shopping bags, and 25 per cent of survey respondents do not use plastic shopping bags at all. Green Industries SA has developed a guide to the ban on plastic shopping bags, available through the Replace the Waste website, as well as information about alternatives to plastic shopping bags.

Information on the Replace the Waste website is available in nine languages other than English, reflecting the most common languages spoken by South Australian communities. As part of the education to support the 2024 bans, Green Industries SA will be developing a campaign in early 2025 to encourage South Australians to adopt more reusable items, including shopping bags, coffee cups and food containers.

Penalties under the single-use plastics act are broader and higher than those under the plastic bags act. Under the plastic bags act, the offence of providing a plastic shopping bag is limited to a retailer. However, the single-use plastics act contains an offence to sell, supply or distribute. The maximum penalty under the plastic bags act for providing a plastic shopping bag is $5,000 whereas the single-use plastics act contains a maximum penalty of $20,000 for a manufacturer, producer, wholesaler or distributor and $5,000 in other cases, such as a retailer.

Consultation on the draft single-use plastics regulations ran in accordance with section (6)(2) of the single-use plastics act, which requires the minister to publicly consult for a period of no less than eight weeks prior to adding a new prohibited plastic product to the SUP Act by regulation.

There were 19 business survey responses and 134 individual survey responses received during consultation. Overall, there was strong support from individuals to ban plastic shopping bags. A small number of respondents expressed their dissatisfaction with the ban, highlighting the reuse of plastic shopping bags for bin liners, holding wet items of clothing and poor performance of paper bags for some items. However, there was no evidence in the survey responses which suggested plastic film shopping bags are reused more than once or twice before they are discarded. In general, businesses agreed with the proposed ban, with one business highlighting the need to clear stock on hand.

The repeal bill commencement clause specifies that the repeal act comes into operation on a day to be fixed by proclamation. Prohibiting all plastic shopping bags under the single-use plastics act promotes consistent, contemporary offences and penalties, and I commend the bill to members.

Of course, that is a rather dry recitation of the second reading speech, given that it is a necessary element to any piece of legislation: that the second reading speech be available for consultation should there be any legal activity in the future in order to guide the intention of the lawmakers. But I would like to add on a more personal and perhaps not quite so much a tongue-twisting note that I pay tribute to the former member for Black, who is no longer with us—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: In parliament.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: —in parliament—forgive me, that was not deliberately ambiguous; no longer in this chamber and no longer a member of this chamber—for a couple of things that he did as the previous minister for the environment. One of them was to introduce the single-use plastics act that did create a modern mechanism. Therefore, by paying tribute to him I pay tribute to the former government, the Liberal government under Steven Marshall, for choosing to craft a piece of legislation that has now necessitated the repeal of what has now become an outdated piece of legislation. Through that, I recognise that this is a bipartisan effort to get rid of single-use plastics.

The majority of plastic in the world is only used once. That is a stunning fact, particularly given that still far too much of it is not only wastefully therefore produced, because it is only used once, but is still not being disposed of in a way that keeps it out of our waterways.

I commend this piece of legislation. It is a small piece of legislation in the sense that it is repealing what is now a redundant act but it is an opportunity for people to speak to the advantages of getting rid of single-use plastics, and I am sure that that will be the vast majority of the contributions today.

The SPEAKER: And it's not a single-use piece of legislation, is it?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Exactly. I seek leave to have the explanation of clauses inserted in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

Explanation of Clauses

Part 1—Preliminary

1—Short title

2—Commencement

These clauses are formal.

Part 2—Repeal of Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008

3—Repeal of Act

This clause repeals the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008 as the prohibition and restriction on the provision and use of plastic shopping bags is intended to be regulated under the Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act 2020.

Part 3—Repeal of Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Regulations 2022

4—Repeal of regulations

This clause repeals the regulations made under the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008.

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (16:10): I would like to thank the Deputy Premier for outlining exactly what it is, because I did not want to have to do that tongue twisting of plastic versus plastic. It is very much a bill to repeal a piece of legislation that effectively duplicates the banning of a particular class of bags twice, so it is fantastic that we are actually able to get rid of some legislation that is no longer necessary.

As the lead speaker for the opposition, we fully support the removal of this piece of legislation and so very much back this bill. I would like to again thank the Deputy Premier and her staff for organising a very quick briefing for me in relation to this bill after taking on this new role as the shadow minister responsible for the environment and having to get myself across this piece of legislation. I thank her, her staff and the departmental staff for that briefing.

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (16:11): South Australia has always been a leader in environmental protection. We were the first state to ban plastic bags, to introduce a container deposit scheme and to push for stronger recycling measures. But we cannot stop now because plastic pollution is still choking our waterways and our wildlife. It might sound counterintuitive to progress legislation that repeals a law banning the sale of plastic bags, but we do it for good reason. This Malinauskas Labor government's commitment to minimising plastic waste of all persuasions extends far beyond an act designed only to capture plastic shopping bags. And that's no slight on a Rann Labor government that introduced these laws back in 2009; it's simply proof of how far we have come since then.

In 2009, the people of this house and the other place led the nation and paved the way for successful South Australian governments. Since then we have demonstrated how reform at a state level can help drive the whole country forward. That is not to say that there have not been speed bumps along the way. I am sure I speak for all in here when I say the collapse of REDcycle's soft plastics program was an extremely disappointing development, again one that state and federal Labor governments are working to resolve. But today, by repealing the plastic shopping bags act, we avoid duplication and instead run with one all-encompassing piece of legislation that captures this government's priorities.

Last year, South Australia's phase-out of single-use plastic products took another step forward. In September we waved goodbye to single-use plastic coffee cups and lids, all plastic bag food tags, plastic bag tags, plastic balloon sticks, ties and confetti, and of course plastic laminated paper bags. That is not a small change by any measure, but it is one we have embraced as a state, with 97 per cent of people participating in consultation saying that they supported further bans on single-use plastic items. And because we are a government that listens, that is exactly what we are doing.

Later this year, plastic barrier bags used for dairy, meat, poultry, fish and seafood products, plastic fruit stickers and, last but certainly not least, those silly little soy sauce fish containers will join an already extensive list of banned items. We are making this happen with the cooperation of both consumers and business and to know there is such widespread support for initiatives that help keep our communities clean and beautiful is extremely pleasing to see from a position of government.

Sadly, right now across our state, plastic waste continues to pile up where it does not belong. Plastic does not break down naturally. It generally takes about 500 to 1,000 years to break down. These products, leaked into our environment, can have a variety of environmental, health and economic consequences. In our oceans and rivers, fish and other marine life mistake microplastics for food, filling their little stomachs with tiny indigestible fragments. Sea turtles mistaking plastic bags for jellyfish will swallow them whole only to slowly suffocate from the inside. Even birds searching for food to feed to their chicks will bring back bottle caps, plastic shards and small pieces of plastic, unknowingly starving their young.

At times, along our highways and in our parks, plastic will flutter along in the wind, a regular reminder of a wasteful society. We cannot let this be our legacy. The plastic we use for a moment lingers for centuries, but the good news is that we can stop this. Right across the globe, governments are phasing out single-use plastics, and major companies and small businesses are investing in biodegradable and reusable alternatives. South Australia should be at the forefront of this movement, driving real change, just as we always have.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the passionate advocacy of my community when it comes to eliminating the use of single-use and soft plastics, in particular, the students at Flagstaff Hill Primary School. When REDcycle wound up in 2022, I received a letter from each of the year 4 students at Flagstaff Hill Primary, but there is one student in particular whose letter I would like to share. Sophia wrote:

Dear Ms Erin Thompson,

My name is Sophia and I am a year four student at Flagstaff Hill Primary School. I am really disappointed that when we just started getting used to using the REDcycle program and collected 592 pieces in four weeks there was not that program anymore. Please can you go to Parliament House and invest some money for the REDcycle program. Thank you for reading this. I hope you can fix the problem.

Sophia may be a few years older now—I think she is probably in high school—but her message back then was on point, and it still is now. While we continue to work through soft plastic recycling solutions for our state, I hope that Sophia will be pleased to hear that we are reducing single-use plastic significantly.

She may also be pleased to know that Green Industries SA, through the Australian government's Recycling Modernisation Fund, is administering a $20 million grant to Recycling Plastics Australia in Kilburn. This means that we will have a facility that cleans and purifies soft plastics, like chip packets and food wrappers, and then uses that recycled packaging to create new raw materials. This is an initiative that my community is ready and waiting for. Each of us has a role to play, and the advocacy of young South Australians has played no small part in bringing soft plastics recycling programs to life.

The work of this government since its election in 2022 speaks for itself. We have a strong and committed minister in the form of our Deputy Premier, who has dedicated not just the last few years but her career to bettering our environment and strengthening environmental protections. This is yet another example of her leadership, and I thank her today for her tireless advocacy.

South Australia has never waited for others to lead. We set the standard. By banning plastic bags and other harmful plastics, we take a stand for our environment, our wildlife and our future. I look forward to repealing the existing act, despite how well it served us, but only because we are making way for bigger, better and stronger legislation. With that, I commend this bill to the house.

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (16:17): I, too, rise in support of this bill. South Australia has led the way in reducing waste. We were the first to introduce a container deposit scheme in 1977 and one of the first states to ban plastic bags. In recent times, we have introduced legislation to allow bring your own containers in supermarkets, restaurants and cafes, and we are continuing our nation-leading phased approach to banning single-use plastics.

South Australians have embraced these changes, whether it is collecting cans and bottles for charities or for the Scouts, taking a keep cup to our local cafe for our morning coffee or using our own reusable bags for the weekly grocery shop. In fact, research commissioned by Green Industries SA in July 2023 found that 98 per cent of South Australian survey respondents already own reusable bags.

As I previously mentioned, South Australia led the nation on the phase-out of lightweight plastic shopping bags when the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008, or plastic bags act, came into force on 4 May 2009 under the Rann Labor government, banning lightweight, singlet-style plastic shopping bags that were less than 35 microns in thickness. I applaud the work of the Rann Labor government in introducing this act, and today the Malinauskas government seeks to build on that legacy.

Through this bill, we are extending prohibitions on single-use plastic shopping bags by utilising the more modern and more broadly scoped Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act 2020, or single-use plastics act. This strengthens efforts to remove plastic film shopping bags of any thickness from circulation in South Australia by broadening the scope of prohibited plastic shopping bags. This includes plastic shopping bags already banned under the plastic bags act, making the plastic bags act redundant and in need of repeal.

The Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Repeal Bill 2024 seeks to repeal the plastic bags act and the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Regulations 2022. The newly amended single-use plastics regulations under the single-use plastics act will now include plastic shopping bags already banned under the plastic bags act, as well as banning all plastic film bags, no matter the thickness, and plastic-laminated paper shopping bags.

The current plastic bags act includes an exemption for Australian Standards-certified compostable shopping bags. This exemption has been included in the regulations, as well as additional exemptions for commonly used reusable shopping bags made from plastic materials, such as nylon, polyester and non-woven polypropylene.

During the consultation on this bill, there were 19 business survey responses and 134 individual survey responses received. Overall, there was strong support from individuals to ban plastic shopping bags. While a small number of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the ban, they highlighted the re-use of plastic shopping bags for bin liners or holding wet clothing and highlighted the poor performance of paper bags. However, there was not really any evidence from survey responses that suggested that plastic film shopping bags are re-used more than once or twice before eventually being discarded and ultimately ending up in landfill.

In response to a query from the charitable sector, a three-year time-limited exemption, until 1 September 2027, will be put in place for charitable organisations who receive donations of goods from the public in plastic film bags and then re-use these bags for sales of second-hand goods in their retail shops. By September 2027, it is expected that the number of plastic film bags still being used to donate clothes will have significantly decreased and the exemption will no longer be required.

The single-use plastics act also provides for broader and higher penalties than those under the plastic bags act. Under the plastic bags act, the offence of providing a plastic shopping bag is limited to a retailer. However, the single-use plastics act contains an offence to supply, sell or distribute. The maximum penalty under the plastic bags act for providing a plastic shopping bag was $5,000, whereas the single-use plastics act contains a maximum penalty of $20,000 for a manufacturer, producer, wholesaler or distributor, and $5,000 in other cases such as for a retailer.

Why is this act so important? The same strengths that have made plastic so widely used in our community over the years have also presented an enormous environmental challenge. Plastic does not break down naturally; it generally takes between 500 to 1,000 years for plastics to break down. Even then, they become microplastics or nanoplastics, without fully degrading. Plastic products then leak into the environment and can have a variety of environmental, health and economic consequences, such as:

marine pollution and negative effects on marine ecosystems and wildlife;

health impacts of microplastics and nanoplastics on the human body;

litter issues and the impact on the amenity of public spaces;

single-use plastics as a growing source of greenhouse gas emissions; and

the economic cost of damage to fisheries, aquaculture, marine transport and tourism industries due to marine plastic pollution.

It is recognised around the world that phasing out single-use plastics is an important and achievable step in striving to reduce pollution, cutting carbon emissions and protecting marine life. Without action the annual flow of plastic into the ocean alone will nearly triple by 2040 to 29 million metric tonnes per year, the equivalent of 50 kilograms of plastic for every metre of coastline worldwide.

That is why I am so proud of my local community, who has embraced these changes to phase out single-use plastics. There have been so many small businesses leading in this space in my community; for example, DayJob cafe on Halifax Street. The owner, Antonio, chose to avoid single-use plastics from the day he opened his cafe in 2020. They used paper straws and then switched to metal straws and, from the beginning, always used compostable cups. Another local leader is Let Them Eat in Adelaide Central Market and James Place, who in 2022 was named our 42nd Plastic Free Champion. Let Them Eat have always had a focus on using sustainable ingredients, where possible, and minimal packaging that is either recyclable or compostable, and even their labelling is done with stamps, not stickers.

This Sunday, I am incredibly excited to be holding a community information session with the Minister for Environment, Dr Susan Close, on how South Australia is leading the nation in its phased approach to banning single-use plastics and other plastic products. Locals in my community are encouraged to come along to learn about how they can replace the waste by avoiding single-use and other plastic products and adopting clean and green alternatives instead.

We are holding the event at Something Special Concept Store on Hutt Street. This store is a female-led small business run by a mother-daughter team, Rachel and Dianne Mifsud. It is an eco-conscious store and stocks brands that follow a sustainable and ethical model from concept to manufacture to packaging and end-of-life waste. They stock eco-friendly kitchen, bathroom and cleaning products, composting starter kits, daily essentials, nail and body care, chocolates and beverages to name but a few.

Something Special Concept Store is one of our local champions for change and I love the store's motto, 'A minor pivot with a global impact'. If you would like to attend my community information session this Sunday, which includes a light morning tea, check out my social media page to RSVP. Minister Close and I would love to see you there on Sunday. With those comments, I commend the bill to the house.

Ms O'HANLON (Dunstan) (16:25): I rise most happily to speak on this bill, a bill which really speaks to the good that is being done in this parliament, the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Repeal Bill 2024. As of 1 September 2024, all plastic film shopping bags were banned in South Australia, so this bill seeks to avoid legislative duplication. This fact alone is such a giant step forward for us as a society and a sign that it does not matter how long something has been the norm when, as a society, we realise the error of our ways and we can do things differently and better.

I remember when I first moved to a jurisdiction that had banned single-use shopping bags in supermarkets, in this case Canberra where I lived for a year in 2012. I remember thinking, 'How damn sensible. Of course I can bring my own reusable shopping bags to the supermarket.' In the beginning, I did forget a few times, to be honest, and so I would load all my groceries into the boot of my car, not in any bags, and then unload them again when I got home. I soon remembered to bring my own shopping bags. I have been a convert to the practice ever since, and, frankly, going to jurisdictions like New South Wales that really were late to the party on this issue, well, they just seemed out of step.

In my first speech to this place, I spoke about my childhood in the country and riding my horse through the Australian bush. I truly believe growing up in the country, having that experience, gave me a deep love of nature and the bush and I think it is this love of nature that causes me to be so saddened when I see it spoiled by rubbish, particularly rubbish that we know takes hundreds even thousands of years to break down as plastic does, and even worse is that it often actually breaks down into microplastics on the way. We know that microplastics are now ubiquitous, so much so that they are in the human bloodstream.

So while plastic is a very useful invention and a very important part of our economy and will no doubt be something we as humans will quite possibly always make use of, it is self-evident that it has been overused. From islands in South-East Asia, where otherwise beautiful beaches are littered with single-use plastics, to the Galapagos Islands and even the Antarctic, we have evidence all around us of its overuse.

The prelude to this bill of course was not only the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008, which banned lightweight singlet-style plastic shopping bags that are less than 35 microns in thickness, but also the Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act 2020, which broadened the scope of the plastic shopping bag ban and introduced a phased plan to ban single-use and other plastic products.

So what has been the story so far? Starting in March 2021, single-use plastic straws, cutlery and stirrers were banned. These single-use items have been replaced with reusable and plastic-free compostable alternatives we are already so used to seeing in use. In March 2022, polystyrene cups, bowls, plates and clamshell containers were also banned. These oxo-degradable plastic products have additives, which I personally find shocking, that actually enable the plastic to break down into microplastics.

In September 2023, plastic-stemmed cotton buds for personal use, single-use plastic bowls and plates, and plastic pizza savers were banned, of course with medical exemptions where necessary (probably not with the pizza savers). Most recently, in September 2024, thick supermarket or boutique-style plastic bags were banned as well as single-use plastic beverage containers, such as coffee cups, polystyrene food and beverage containers, and trays used for meat, fruit and other food items were also banned.

The final stage will be this year when as of 1 September 2025, plastic fruit stickers, plastic soy sauce fish and prepackaged and attached products such as products that contain plastic straws or cutlery will be phased out. I have to say I personally will be thrilled when an alternative is found to those little fruit and veg stickers which I am a bit obsessed with picking off fruit and veg as soon as I buy it. Of course, in undertaking this exercise in bringing our use of single-use plastics into the modern age, extensive consultation was carried out, including with specific stakeholders expected to be directly impacted by the amendment regulations and the South Australian public with the overwhelming number of respondents expressing their strong support, including that of business owners.

Additionally, exemptions were made for unavoidable uses of single-use plastic, such as plastic in medical settings and in the case of certified compostable plastic shopping bags. And so we see that the introduction of the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008 was subsequently superseded by the expanded Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act 2020. This bill, the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Repeal Bill 2024 seeks to repeal that 2008 act and the subsequent Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Regulation 2022 and streamline the regulation of single-use plastic under the one expanded bill.

I truly thank the minister, her staff and the department for continuing to ensure that South Australia is at the forefront of environmental policy in this country. I am proud to be South Australian and I am proud to be part of this thoughtful government. This is an example of government that does not say, 'Oh that's too hard. Plastics are too entrenched in society, we can't sensibly reduce their use.' This government looks at what needs to be done, looks at how it can be done and gets on with it. I commend this bill to the house.

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (16:31): I am incredibly pleased to be speaking to this bill as the elected recycling monitor for all of my primary school days. I have many a story about my own experiences as a generation that really saw the changes to legislation in the environment space in real time as a primary school and high school student. In fact, it was the first time I had any contact with a politician when I was at primary school—and I am really showing my age now—when I wrote to the local member, Jane Lomax-Smith, and spoke to her about my experience. We went to a recycling depot of some description and we learned all about the triangles on the bottom of bottles and different items at the time. I wrote to Jane Lomax-Smith as I think a year 2 or year 3 student asking for that to be extended. Then I went home and made a presentation to my parents about the importance of recycling and where we could recycle different things.

That for me has been something in my generation at least, alongside my peers, that we have always been brought up with and I think that has been really important in terms of watching those attitudes change, the narrative change, and it shows what can be done when governments are taking decisive action on things like plastic bags. I have grown up in a generation where I have seen it in a way that makes it seem like it has always been that way almost. I do not remember the time before we were having those discussions. When you make decisions like this it does go a long way to changing those attitudes, particularly for the next generation.

Here in South Australia we led the nation not just by a little bit but by many years when the Rann Labor government phased out lightweight shopping bags in 2009. Of course, by extending prohibitions on single-use plastic shopping bags, we are strengthening our efforts to remove plastic film bags of any thickness from circulation in South Australia.

I think that we are all incredibly pleased with the work that is being done here, not just in relation to single-use plastic bags but of course single-use plastics more generally. Often in this place we do really important work but you cannot always see or touch what is being done out in the community or show individuals in a tangible way something that a government has done to effect change.

But, of course, here in this example we can see tangible changes in behaviours and attitudes to the environment as a result of that act. Each time we are buying takeaway food or coffee or get a paper straw in a drink, we can see the tangible changes that have been made as a result of this legislation. I think that is really important.

In order to continue that work, of course, we do need to repeal the plastic bags act and that is what we are doing, repealing both the act and the regulations. The new act, of course, bans retailers from providing a lightweight checkout-style plastic bag, instead requiring a biodegradable bag or heavy weight plastic bag or others that have previously been available for purchase.

I know that lots of us are really welcoming this change. It is something that many people have tried to do and take on in their own shopping. A lot of individuals I know, particularly my friends and peers as I have mentioned before, have taken a decisive action in terms of when they do their shopping and how they do their shopping. Many of my friends will purchase things in bulk online or in glass jars. We all take our little metal straws out with us when we go out for drinks and that sort of thing, and that is something that we have been doing for quite some time now. But I think it does say a lot to change those things in a real way, which helps to change those attitudes for individuals who have not been making those decisions self-prompted in the past.

I think that as we as a government particularly, and governments more broadly, look to a solution to the soft plastics problem overall, it is really important to be making decisions like this one. I know that many of us have struggled to return to putting our soft plastics straight into the red bin after we saw the REDcycle situation, when many of us would pack up our soft plastics, put them in big bags and take them over to Coles and watch them all overflow as other people did the same—sometimes leaving them in my car or in my garage for too many months before taking them over to Coles. But the way that it has encouraged people to change their attitudes back is really interesting. I think that that is something that lots of us have struggled with—trying to put those things in the bin again and feel that we are not contributing in a positive way, or that the thing that we tried to do to try to do the right thing is no longer having an impact.

I have seen a huge difference in being offered the biodegradable option at the supermarket or at the fruit and veg. Personally, I have really preferred the introduction of the heavy-duty biodegradable bags at a number of shops as a result of these changes, particularly in relation to the choice between that or a paper bag when you are going shopping.

I think it has been really interesting to look into the behaviours and attitudes of individuals towards these changes, particularly in South Australia. We know that we led the way in terms of the plastic bags act in 2009, as mentioned before. As a young person who watched that happen in real time, when you would go on holiday or when you would go and see relatives, seeing the single-use plastic bags in supermarkets interstate was often quite confronting and confusing: 'Why do they still have these here?' I think that is really important when we think about the impact this will have on the next generation of individuals who grow up in, hopefully, a retail environment where they are required to make environmentally conscious decisions about their shopping.

When we looked at the Green Industries research, it showed that 98 per cent of South Australian respondents already own reusable bags, and I think that that is quite telling. I am very curious to see if there would be the same sort of uptake in other states where it is not as entrenched or it is a newer decision to ban the single-use plastic bags. When you are talking about the fact that they are something that are basically found in every South Australian household, we can also see the tangible impact of work like that. We can actually look at it and see that something that a government did in terms of moving forward and changing those attitudes to shopping generally had a significant impact, and in just a generation or less we have been able to change those attitudes tenfold. I think that is really important.

I did see something on the internet the other day about not being an adult until you have bags of bags in your kitchen or in your garage as the case may be.

Mr Telfer: Or in the back seat.

Ms SAVVAS: Yes, or in the back seat of the car—often left in the back seat, so you go into to the shop and then you have to purchase more. I say it as a bit of a joke, but I think it is actually quite important and talks about just how significant that is to individuals and how that change in behaviour has really been entrenched in South Australians and what that means to individuals. We do not like to go shopping without our bags. I used the example before that even when I leave a bag of bags in the car, I go into the shop and I buy more rather than use the ones that were previously being provided at the supermarket prior to this change or the ones that are available for purchase.

Of course, I often try to use Olivia Savvas bags when I do my shopping locally, but I also do continually buy green bags when the option is available. I know that I am not the only one who has tried to change their own attitude as I have gone along and not add to the major issue that we have with single-use plastics as best we can.

There are a number of retailers where you shop online, for example, and they give you the option: 'Would you like the fancy packaging with coloured cardboard and glittery stickers and things, or would you like the eco-conscious option?' Although I would like to see a world where all retailers are moving towards an option where all that packaging is more eco-conscious, I do think that giving individuals the choice as they move towards that is quite important. Again, I would be interested to see the statistics on who is making those choices to have an eco-conscious package when purchasing something and I think that we would be very pleased to see the results.

I think it is also really important that we do make this accessible. Something that comes across a lot, particularly in multicultural communities—and I myself am the granddaughter of migrants on both sides—is that often environmental measures are not things that are seen as accessible or tangible for individuals who have a cultural misunderstanding, or perhaps there is a language barrier. I was very pleased to see that there is material related to these changes and to the changes we are making as a government in nine languages other than English. I think that is really important and, of course, that there will be continued work to campaign on all of the ways that we can make positive changes and encourage individuals to use reusable materials where they can.

I thought I would give a little bit of an anecdote about the seniors' forums that I host in my electorate. Last year we hosted I think five or six seniors' forums out and about in my electorate, some of those inside nursing homes or retirement villages, others just generally out in the community. Something that was asked for at the first two or three sessions that we did not have was someone to come and talk about waste. Generally individuals wanted to know what goes in which bin. I think it is really interesting to see that even an older demographic—and some of the individuals attending my forums are upwards of 90—is wanting to make decisions to make less waste, to make the right decisions in terms of the impact that they are having on the environment, many of whom are living alone and not necessarily contributing in a significant way. Still, it was a question that we were asked time and time again: 'Can someone come and speak to us about waste?'

It has become well and truly the most successful part of the forum and the presentation that we put on. People love hearing from our local council and the waste officers at the City of Tea Tree Gully. They give some really interesting stats about the amount of waste that goes to landfill each year and also on average what individuals in Tea Tree Gully are contributing to that problem. You always see the exasperated look on everyone's faces in the room as they hear that in actual numbers. It is something that people are generally worried about, even individuals of that older generation where perhaps a lot of this information could be new to some of them. I think it has been really interesting to show the breadth of interest in changing attitudes towards waste and the environment more generally.

The first time we had one of those sessions the individual from the council had these 'which bin' magnets that go on the fridge and talk about what you put in each bin and let me tell you I was receiving calls for weeks with requests for those magnets. They are very large magnets too; there was a yellow one, a green one and a red one in our case I believe. People were just asking questions about what goes where. I always find it really interesting how surprised some individuals are to find out what goes in which bin.

I know that at the City of Tea Tree Gully when I was a councillor we ran a pizza box campaign over about a six-month period in all of our publications where we talked about putting your pizza box in the green bin and encouraging individuals to put anything cardboard or paper that had food remnants or oil on it to go into the green bin rather than in the recycle bin. At the time it was something that people mentioned to me on a very regular basis. People just did not know that your pizza box went in the green bin. Still to this day, every time I go and have pizza with friends, family or have people over, I do find myself moving pizza boxes from the recycle bin into the green bin and having to educate people on something that I thought was quite common knowledge, which, of course is not.

I just had my two teenage brothers come and stay with me for about 10 days over summer and let me tell you that was eye-opening for many reasons, but there were greasy cardboard boxes all over the house. Again, we had a real educational moment when teaching them what needed to go into the green bin: pizza boxes, their boxes of chicken wings, everything else that they were hiding in the bedroom as they played video games—putting everything in the green bin. I gave my 14-year-old brother the role of bin monitor. I said I had had the role in the family for way too long and I was passing the baton to him.

I think it was really interesting that even teenage boys of their generation (14 and 20) were not necessarily aware of what went in which bin. Again, I think that is a really important education piece as we move forward. Taking decisive action like this, relating to plastic bags, for example, or relating to single-use plastics, does go a long way in terms of changing those attitudes and to normalise behaviours.

I remember my brothers commenting on the paper straws and the paper lids on their frozen Cokes at McDonald's. Of course, that is not something they have interstate where they live, and that was something that was very obvious to them when they had McDonald's arriving off the plane. That was something that was tangible, that they could touch. They asked me why that was the case and we got to have that conversation. Even just a little conversation like that goes a long way to changing attitudes, changing the narrative and encouraging individuals to be more eco conscious when making their decisions or deciding on the way that they shop and eat.

It goes a long way to changing the attitude of businesses as well, knowing that there are requirements and these requirements are for a reason. I have been really pleased to hear feedback from so many local businesses in my community about how pleased they are to have transitioned in a really smooth way into the more environmentally friendly packaging of some of their takeaway foods. A lot of them feel encouraged by making a contribution as a small business, just in their own little way, to the environment more generally.

I want to acknowledge the work that has been done in relation to this. South Australia continues to be a leader in this space, and I for one am incredibly proud to be part of that work, to showcase our work when we have friends here from interstate, and to continue to play the role of recycling monitor in my own life as best I can. I continue to spruik the work of the South Australian government in terms of waste, packaging, shopping and the best ways that we can do so.

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (16:46): I rise to support the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Repeal Bill 2024. This bill, or the plastic bags act, bans lightweight singlet-style plastic shopping bags that are less than 35 microns in thickness. South Australia led the nation on the phase-out of lightweight plastic bags when the act came into force on 4 May 2009. It is always worth doing the maths, because you always think that was only a couple of years ago, but it was a really long time ago. This was under our former Rann Labor government, something that we are all very proud that they instigated and began changing the behaviour of South Australians.

Now, the Malinauskas Labor government is extending prohibitions on single-use plastic shopping bags by utilising the more modern and more broadly scoped Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act 2020, or single-use plastics act. This strengthens efforts to remove plastic film shopping bags of any thickness from circulation in South Australia by broadening the scope of prohibited plastic shopping bags. This will include plastic shopping bags already banned under the plastic bags act, making the plastic bags act redundant and in need of repeal.

As a leader in Australia, because our behaviour is so normalised—and a number of members have talked about how common it is for all of us to take our own bags to the supermarket and to have as little plastic in our lives as possible—sometimes when you travel overseas and see the amount of plastic that is thoughtlessly applied to almost every product, it can be really confronting because our behaviour is so accepted now. It gives you cause to reflect on the influence that a government can have on changing our behaviour. Of course, so many individuals are motivated to do anything they can in every act they do to support our environment, but it really is our government that is able to instigate this broad-based change.

The plastic shopping bags bill seeks to repeal the plastic bags act. In summary, the plastic bags act bans retailers from providing a customer with a lightweight, checkout-style plastic bag, defined as a carry bag that includes handles and comprises polyethylene and a thickness of less than 35 microns. Biodegradable bags and heavyweight plastic bags are not banned under the plastic bags act.

The regulations set out signage requirements in relation to the banning of lightweight checkout-style plastic shopping bags from a prescribed day. That was back on 4 May 2009. The Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) (Prohibited Plastic Products) Amendment Regulations 2024 under the single-use plastics act include plastic shopping bags already banned as well as banning all plastic film bags, no matter the thickness, and plastic laminated paper shopping bags.

The current plastic bags act includes an exemption for Australian Standard certified compostable shopping bags. This exemption has been included in the draft single-use plastics regulations, as well as additional exemptions for reusable shopping bags made from plastic materials such as nylon, polyester and non-woven polypropylene.

Penalties under the single-use plastics act are broader and higher than those under the plastic bags act. Under the plastic bags act, the offence is limited to a retailer providing a plastic shopping bag. However, the single-use plastics act contains an offence to sell, supply or distribute.

I do note the member for Newland reflecting on her time as the recycling monitor at school and the campaign she led, and that she wrote to Jane Lomax-Smith at the time. She is not alone in running mini campaigns in her community. As a family, we used to regularly go to the food court in the Central Market on a Friday night and out of the blue the landlord shut the central kitchen down, which meant that, whilst all of the small shopfront food outlets were obviously cooking their food out the back, the central dishwashing services were no longer available, so many of the shopfronts suddenly started serving on plastic plates and with plastic cutlery.

You might not be surprised that the next week I was out with a petition so I could write to the landlord. I went around to all the consumers in the food court for a couple of weeks to get them to change the decision and provide dishwashing services to all the food outlets in the food court at the Central Market. So I think the kinds of changes that we are making in this community are very easily acceptable, and I commend this bill to the house.

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (16:52): I rise today in support of the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Repeal Bill 2024 which seeks to repeal the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008 and the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Regulations 2022. South Australia led the nation to phase out lightweight plastic shopping bags from May 2009 after the Rann Labor government passed the Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008, more commonly referred to as the plastic bags act. It is estimated that this legislation has saved 400 million plastic bags every year in South Australia alone.

In 2010, I spent a few weeks in Tasmania for work. When I packed my suitcase, I threw my clothes in, some cleanser, maybe a little bit of mascara—maybe—and I actually made sure I packed a few reusable shopping bags. I knew I could get disposable bags in shops there but I did not want to. When my Tasmanian colleagues found out that I had packed my own shopping bags, they thought it was weird and funny but it had just become more normal to me than even taking a shopping list to the supermarket.

I will admit that, even though I have some bags at home, in my car and, of course, in my office—feel free to drop by and grab one: a Nadia Clancy MP reusable shopping bag—every now and then I do get to the cashier with more items than I had planned on purchasing, maybe because I do not take a shopping list, but on those occasions you will see me walking out of the supermarket with an armful of groceries precariously piled on top of each other because I just will not get another bag.

Now, almost 16 years after the ban came into place, another Labor state government continues to extend prohibitions on plastic shopping bags and other single-use plastics. Today, we use the more modern and broadly scoped Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act 2020, more commonly referred to as the single-use plastics act. The newer act strengthens our efforts to remove plastic shopping bags of any thickness from circulation in our state by broadening the scope of prohibited plastic shopping bags. This includes bags that were already banned under the previous plastic bags act. As such, today's bill simply moves to repeal the redundant pre-existing legislation and regulations, which are no longer required in this space.

I am incredibly proud to be part of a state government that is steadfast in our efforts to protect our natural environment, waterways and beaches. South Australians are rightfully immensely proud of our state's national and often international leadership in environmental protection and climate change mitigation. Typically only used for a matter of seconds, single-use plastics last many, many lifetimes in our natural environment. Phasing out their use is an important way to reduce pollution and carbon emissions while protecting marine life.

Our government has set an ambitious timetable to ban single-use plastics in line with expectation following the successful bans of single-use straws, cutlery and stirrers put forward by the previous state government. We have brought forward plans to decrease the amount of single-use plastics in line with people's expectations, who reasonably demand more than what had been planned by those opposite. Community consultation undertaken in 2022 showed that South Australians wanted urgent action to ban a range of items. Of the more than 3,000 people who participated in Green Industries SA's public consultation report, 97 per cent of respondents said they wanted more action on single-use items like plastic bags and takeaway coffee cups.

In 2023, we banned plastic-stemmed cotton buds, plastic pizza savers—it took me far too long to realise what they were and their purpose—and single-use plastic plates and bowls. The latest round of banned items as of September last year included plastic barrier bags, thick supermarket and boutique-style plastic bags, expanded polystyrene consumer food and beverage containers, plastic confetti and plastic balloon sticks or ties, plastic food bag tags and single-use plastic food and beverage containers, including coffee cups.

Further phasing out of single-use plastics in September this year will include plastic fruit stickers, thank goodness, and plastic soy sauce fish containers—yes! Members of my community have been incredibly supportive of our improved timeline for the phasing out of single-use plastics, with a number of local businesses already jumping on board and changing their practices ahead of time.

One such business is the lovely Pantry on Egmont, technically located in Hawthorn but mere metres from the boundary of my electorate. The Pantry is enjoyed by so many in Westbourne Park and Colonel Light Gardens as well as residents from other nearby suburbs who adore this community-orientated cafe. The Pantry on Egmont is a business member of Plastic Free SA, a pilot program that works directly with food retailers across Adelaide to assist them to switch from single-use plastics to better alternatives.

Like single-use plastics, my community is also gravely concerned about the impact soft plastics are having on our environment, particularly since the collapse of REDcycle. That is why I and thousands of South Australians were so excited when the federal Minister for the Environment and Water, the honourable and excellent Tanya Plibersek MP, announced that the Albanese Labor government would be investing $20 million in advanced recycling technology.

In a partnership with our own state government, Recycling Plastics Australia in Kilburn have been tasked with cleaning and purifying soft plastics to create feedstock for new soft plastic packaging. This project will create 45 jobs and help Australia to develop an advanced recycling supply chain that will turn soft plastic waste back into packaging. Once up and running, this project will divert more than 14,000 tonnes of soft plastics from South Australian landfills each and every year.

While the bill before us today is really only a simple mechanism to repeal legislation that is surplus to requirements, it is important that our laws are consistent and promote activity that protects our environment and waterways, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the great work that has been done by this and previous Labor governments. I commend this bill to the house.

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (16:59): Can I say how thankful I am to be living in a state that takes climate change, action on climate change and the impact that humans make on our environment so seriously. Whilst this is a relatively simple repeal bill to remove legislation that is now covered by the Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act, or the single-use plastics act, it really just solidifies our commitment to doing what is right in order to reduce waste and help protect our environment.

Simplifying legislation to the one act strengthens efforts to remove plastic film shopping bags of any thickness from circulation in South Australia, by broadening the scope of prohibited plastic shopping bags. The Plastic Shopping Bags (Waste Avoidance) Act 2008 only banned lightweight shopping bags, the really thin ones. The new 2024 Single-use and Other Plastic Products amendment regulations broaden the scope of this by banning plastic shopping bags, including the thicker ones that we were getting in supermarkets and also in clothing stores, etc.

Penalties under the single-use plastics act are broader and higher than those under the plastic bags act. Under the plastic bags act, the offence of providing a plastic shopping bag is limited to a retailer. However, the single-use plastics act contains an offence of selling, supplying or distributing. The maximum penalty under the plastic bags act for providing a plastic shopping bag is $5,000, whereas the single-use plastics act contains a maximum penalty of $20,000 for a manufacturer, producer, wholesaler or distributor, and $5,000 in other cases, such as a retailer. Serious penalties will result in compliance, which, when you think about it, benefits everybody.

Why do we ban plastic shopping bags? We do that because they are incredibly bad for the environment and they last forever. I think about when I was a young person when my grandma had an orange ceramic container in her kitchen and in there were all these plastic bags, neatly folded as grandmas do. I always remember her using them when she needed to. She actually passed away 10 years ago, and I inherited the pot when she did pass, for sentimental value. I can tell you those neatly folded plastic bags are all still in there, because we do not use them.

If you think about that and multiply it by the hundreds of thousands of people who live in our communities and think about the stashes of plastic bags that they have sitting there, you can imagine why we need to limit and stop our use of plastic bags, because they do not break down. I think my nan would be proud to know that our state is still leading the way in getting rid of plastic bags and other single-use plastics.

Plastic leaks into the environment, and it can have a variety of environmental, health and economic consequences, such as marine pollution and negative effects on the marine ecosystem and wildlife. We only have to look at the TV to see pictures of poor turtles with bags wrapped around their necks or dolphins with twine wrapped around them. The damage that we do to marine life when this sort of stuff gets into the system is hideous.

They are also a threat to the terrestrial environment, if you think about people who chuck their rubbish away out the door of the car or while they are walking. Then little critters look and think, 'That might be something for me to eat.' They try to get into the plastic. They ingest it or they get caught up in it, and again it can impact them and cause them to die. The health impacts of microplastics and nanoplastics on the human body are also extensive, and we know that there is a lot of research in that space.

Single-use plastics are a growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. We see pictures of barges floating with this plastic stuff in there. We need to just stop it, and we are doing that. The economic cost and damage to fisheries, aquaculture, marine transport and tourism industries due to marine plastic pollution is also significant.

Our state led the way with banning plastic bags. I remember going to Queensland when I was much younger, as my sister lived there, when we had already banned them here. I went to the supermarket and they were literally packing everything in plastic bags. I thought to myself, 'This is actually "the more the merrier" plastic up here.' I could not understand why they had not moved too to ban plastic bags.

Sometimes it can be a little annoying when you maybe, as the member for Elder said, do not take enough shopping bags to the shops or think you are going to pop in for two things and come home with a whole trolley full. I am really glad now that paper bags are there for us to use, because the paper bags have so many more uses than just carrying your groceries. The paper bags can be used for lining your compost bin or even lining your rubbish bin. I also use mine to collect my recycling so that it can go straight into the recycling bin and it keeps it all tidy. If you are really crafty, you can use it to wrap presents or wrap things that you are sending in the mail, because it is a strong brown paper. It is nice to know that we are now getting those, instead of plastic bags, in our supermarkets.

Further afield from just plastic bags is our single-use plastic ban and some of the things that I have seen change in my community over time. These are things that you can feel really good about. One of those is that a lot of the shops that sell banh mi and those kinds of things have gone from plastic-lined bags and takeaway containers to using paper bags and fully compostable containers. I know our favourite banh mi shop in Blackwood is one of those, and they do work hard to make sure that they are complying with all the regulations.

Sushi is another one. They used to serve it in those plastic containers that you would get your sushi in, and those were obviously also difficult to deal with. Now sushi is served in paper bags, and you can take them away. I cannot wait for the little plastic fish to be gone as well, because they have no other use than for soy sauce and they just pile up in your recycle bin.

At my Waite Youth Advisory Council I had a group of students for a couple of years, and we would meet regularly to talk about things that were worrying them in the community and things that they really wanted to work on. One of the issues they raised with me was the fact that, while plastic bags were banned in supermarkets, the thick plastic bags were still being used for when groceries were being delivered. They were really concerned about this. They thought that supermarkets could be using boxes or paper bags. Together, we wrote to our local supermarkets and asked them what their stance was and when they were going to be changing over. Thankfully, regulations changed and so those plastic bags can no longer be used, and paper bags and boxes are being used.

It is our kids who know this stuff. They are already doing the work. In school time they learn all about how they can do better things for the environment. In 2023 I attended the Belair Primary School expo, where the students had done different projects on the environment and things that you can do yourself, or things that the government could be doing, to improve things for the environment. I can honestly say that our future is incredibly bright, because these kids really knew what they were talking about. They had gone away, they had done the research and they had come up with creative ways to not only educate their friends and the school parents but the community more broadly.

One of the groups had mini rubbish bins that you can get from the City of Mitcham—mini green bins. They had ripped up different kinds of rubbish and paper, and you had to decide which bin each piece of paper had to go into. There were some Easter egg wrappers, there was some plastic, there were some papers and all sorts of things like that. Then they would judge you on how well you did at putting those things in the rubbish bin. I do not know whether I got a 100 per cent pass mark, but it certainly educated me, which was really helpful.

Another one of the groups had done some work on ocean litter, and they showed in a plastic container how it all swirls around. You can imagine how litter gets caught up in things, not only marine life but also coral and the things that grow at the bottom of the sea as well. These kids are incredible; they know what they are talking about.

I believe that, whilst we are making legislation in this place and we are doing this work, we should always look at it through a lens of how it is going to impact the kids in the future, because we are making these laws and this legislation for them. Our government and even our state are leaders in this space. It is fabulous to be part of a government that continues to work and continues to find ways of how we can rid ourselves of plastic and how we can do all that we can to protect the environment and create the opportunity to improve things like biodiversity. It is also about educating, because recycling sometimes can be a challenge for some people. We need to make it as easy as possible, and making sure that legislation is clear and straightforward does help in that space.

In a bit of a call-out for my electorate, we have a fantastic recycling centre, the Blackwood Recycling centre. They take all our cans and bottles, and they have been doing it for such a long time. I know that they work hard there every single day. You take all your cans and all your bottles and they have to count every one individually. Then they give you the 10¢ per bottle, which again is another thing in which South Australia has led. Hopefully we can continue to work in that space and look at wine bottles and how we can continue to recycle as much as possible.

This is a repeal bill. We are taking away an outdated piece of legislation and continuing to strengthen our laws in this state. I commend the bill to the house.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (17:09): I am happy to close debate and I really enjoyed listening to everyone's contributions, thank you very much. As I had expected, although a repeal bill is not only very short but also something that seems would be difficult to give a long speech about, because of the subject matter and the reason that we are repealing it there were very interesting and important contributions made.

I would like to add a little more on my own views and position about what is happening and why it is that we are needing to get to a place where we manage our impact on the earth. It is true that at present we have very serious human social and economic problems to address and they are very present in our minds: the challenges of the escalating cost of living. In Australia, at least, the inflation rate has come down well but across the world it has remained a challenge and is nonetheless uncomfortable for people here. The ongoing social challenges of inequality, of lack of equal access to quality education, and domestic violence—wherever we look, there are human-centred problems that we need to address.

They unfortunately do not make the planetary problems that we have go away. Those lurk and they can be ignored for a period of time but they will have a profound impact on us. It is an important attribute of humanity that we deal with more than one challenge at the same time. South Australia has always done that well and I think that we continue to.

Just to focus our minds a little on those challenges that we are facing, climate change is pressing down hard on us. Last year was by far the hottest year on the record; it eclipsed the year before, which already had climate scientists aghast at the rate of change. Last year's calendar year went through the 1.5° of warming from pre-industrial levels. The previous year, there had been 12 months of that, but this time we have matched a calendar year.

The Paris Agreement wants us to keep on a 10-year average to not being warmer than 1.5° and we have had a lot of months in a row where we have done exactly that, well ahead of the time we were hoping to head that off. That is not to say that there is not still a lot of fluctuation in climate and that there is not a lot of hope that the world will turn around and drive emissions down to an extent that we can head off the worst of climate change but it is to say that it is here now and is affecting us now. As we all know, we can have a fever for a day or two and recover easily. Have a fever for a week, a month, three months, and the body's systems start to be so weakened that it can be difficult to survive.

That is exactly the experience that the planet is starting to see where we have fires that erupt and are very difficult to put out. We have in other places floods, landslides and droughts. That continuous impact of too much energy in the system, too much of the solar radiation being retained within the greenhouse effect, within the greenhouse that surrounds us, is really starting to take its toll on the earth and on humanity, on our capacity to predict when we can have our crops, on our capacity to have secure settlements that are not prone to flood or fire and then of course our economic institutions on having insurance that works and that people can afford. We are under threat there.

We also have a challenge with biodiversity where we are seeing increasing numbers of species being pushed to the brink and over the edge and we do not know at what point we start to lose whole ecosystems. It is like rivets on an aeroplane, someone said many years ago. You can lose a few rivets—there are redundancies built into the system—but at one point you lose a rivet and the plane falls out of the sky, and that is the challenge with biodiversity. We see these species become increasingly vulnerable, we see them disappear, but we do not know at what point that becomes irrecoverably a challenge. Those are the two big existential threats that we share globally.

One of the examples of the way in which humanity has, without intending to, increasingly put pressure on the earth and increasingly accelerated this impact on climate and on biodiversity is the way in which we have fallen in love with plastic and failed to deal with it. Plastic is a marvellous material. There is a reason why it has become so successful. It is highly malleable, it is very durable and it is able to be used in very antiseptic circumstances. It can be a very clean product and therefore it is tremendously useful in a variety of places. That has resulted in humanity producing an enormous amount and accelerating.

We humans are often likened to being frogs boiling in a saucepan, that we do not notice that it is getting warm around us. Humans are amazingly adaptable and capable of normalising. That is a tremendous skill to have for a lot of the time and utterly disastrous when a problem is sneaking up on us. It might surprise people to realise how much of the plastic that we are now dealing with has been created very, very recently.

When you look back to 1950, not long after plastic had become a product that could be used fairly widely, there were only two million tonnes produced around the world in 1950. There are now more than 400 million tonnes produced in a year. We have seen an acceleration where in the last two decades we doubled the amount of plastic produced in the previous two decades. We are accelerating our production of this material.

Its very good features, being its durability and malleability, work against our being able to reuse plastic. Some of the chemical compounds are very complex to be able to remake into another product, and their durability means that they just do not go away. At worst, for most plastics as they break down, they become smaller and smaller and become microparticles that are then incorporated into nature and into ourselves.

In fact, I was just reading that it is estimated that on average each person is consuming about a credit card's worth of plastic each week as part of living our lives in this modern world. We know that there are very serious health challenges with that. Babies have microplastics in the placentas that are protecting and nurturing them. That is how ubiquitous plastic has become.

The amount of plastic that exists is, of course, highly wasteful even if we were to dispose of it very, very thoughtfully. In fact, Australia is not good at efficiency of resource use. We have a problem with getting the maximum value out of the material that we use. Australia is able to get about $1.20 out of every kilogram of material that we consume. The OECD average is $2.50, so we are wasteful. As efficient as we think we are, there is more that we can do.

Simply, the volume of plastic that is not able to be reused—and, of course, that was about all materials, but plastic is an increasing proportion of materials—the wastefulness of using resources and energy to create them and not reusing them is bad for our economic efficiency. Of course, there are also greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing plastic. Not only is it fossil fuel in itself, the vast majority of plastic is made from fossil fuels, but also in the production an enormous amount of energy is used, most of which is often coming from greenhouse gases, although we are hoping for and watching the rest of the world emulating South Australia in reducing emissions from electricity production.

Then you look at what happens when plastic is thrown away and it makes its way into our waterways and into the ocean. The loss of biodiversity is heartbreaking, the direct death of marine mammals and marine life through the ingestion of material that is not food that displaces the capacity for those animals to eat food because their stomachs are full or chokes them and kills them directly.

There is also the utter destruction of beautiful places—places that ought to be places that people want to go to pay money, to pay tourism dollars into countries, to visit to enjoy sandy beaches, where increasingly there are plastic bottles, plastic bags and plastic fishing lines washing up on beaches and destroying the natural beauty that would otherwise be a means for a developing country to attract tourism.

We have an enormous challenge before us. It is a challenge that was relatively recently created and we need to turn it around as quickly as, if not more quickly than, it became a significant problem. The good thing is that the public want us to do this. Collectively, we are keen to deal with plastic and with all other forms of waste and litter. Above all, South Australians have the highest per capita recycling rate in the nation. A lot of that could be said to be because we were the first—and it was more than 40 years ago now—to have a container deposit scheme, where it became just part of who we are and what we do that we would re-use beverage containers, we would take them back and get our deposit back. Now, at last, we are almost—Tasmania is still getting there, but they have agreed to do it—at a stage where we have a national scheme for container deposit.

Is that the reason we are different or are we just born different? I do not know, but I can give you a little story. When we were talking about getting rid of plastic bags many years ago, I was briefly a ministerial adviser to the environment minister. The previous environment minister, John Hill, had committed that we would get rid of plastic bags in shopping centres, in supermarkets, and that we would want to do it with the rest of Australia but if it could not be done with the rest of Australia then we would go it alone.

The following minister was Gail Gago, a lovely woman. We were at a ministerial council meeting where we expected all of the other states to agree to getting rid of single-use plastic bags. It must have been around 2006, a time when we thought that people had come on board with the idea and that this would be a natural next step to take. We were surprised to find that none of the other states were at that point ready to do it.

A very senior minister from another jurisdiction said, 'Well, you South Australians, you're just different,' as if there was something special—now, I like to think there is something special about that, but I also think that is an excuse. That is a little get out of jail card: 'You can do it but we couldn't possibly.' Of course, they have all now come on board, just a lot later than us, but we did proceed in any case. We did go ahead with getting rid of single-use plastic bags, which is a very great credit to the work that John Hill and then Gail Gago did to get us into a place where we were prepared to go it alone. I welcome the rest of Australia on board but I will never forget the leadership that was shown right in the early days of container deposit legislation and then through to this.

Then, of course, we have this bipartisan attitude, a bipartisan attitude that, as I paid tribute to earlier, the last Liberal government introduced the single-use plastics legislation. That is the reason that we are all agreeing to repeal this piece of legislation, because it has now become redundant. What we are doing is important. It is not the only thing we need to do to make people's lives better, but it is something that we do need to incorporate into changing our impact on the earth, because everyone will be grateful that we have done it as they increasingly see a healthier planet for our children.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (17:23): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

I again express my gratitude to all the people who have contributed to the legislation—this one was short to write, but also to the preparation of the legislation that is the reason it is being repealed—and to those who made a contribution today.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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