Speech to the Circularity Conference

Thank you for having me here this morning, at the first ever Circularity Conference, on the home of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. 

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to their elders past and present. 

It’s always important to dwell on these words, but it’s particularly important at this conference, because Indigenous culture stands out so clearly as a model of circular thinking. 

First Nations people didn’t need a special term for it, because it was embedded in their approach to life. 

They took what they needed – and they gave back.

And when they gave back, they began the next cycle of growth and renewal.   

It was an endlessly sustainable loop, and it kept this country healthy for at least 65,000 years. 

We are so lucky to share this country with the world’s oldest continuous culture and the most successful environmental custodians on earth. 

Which is why our government is committed to lifting up their Voice to Parliament – and to learning from their remarkable example. 

It also why yesterday, when I tabled our Government’s response to the parliamentary inquiry into the destruction of Juukan Gorge, I reaffirmed our promise to introduce a standalone piece of Indigenous cultural heritage legislation, co-designed with First Nations people.  

Can I also thank the hosts of today’s conference, for all their leadership and advocacy in the area of waste and recycling.

Thirty years ago, when Planet Ark began, Australia was a very different place. 

And I mean that quite literally – it looked different. 

Not that long ago, people littered without a second thought. 

They dropped empty chip packets out their car window. They left coke cans on the beach. 

And they didn’t think much about recycling either. 

Groups like Planet Ark began a cultural revolution when it comes to waste – and it’s made this country a better, more sustainable, more beautiful place to live.  

And now, with the Australian Circular Economy Hub, you and your partners are taking the next step. 

You’re still in the business of waste and recycling – and that business will always be important. 

But through the Hub, you’re moving your way up the supply chain. 

When you read about the circular economy, there's one fact that always jumps out at you:

More than seventy percent of a product’s environmental impact is locked in at the design stage, before a customer ever looks at it.  

Which means we need to get things right at the start, when we’re designing products, to make sure they’re built to be reused and recycled, not thrown out. 

Implementing the circular economy is going to require new systems and new techniques and new equipment. 

It’s going to take time, and difficult conversations, and a shift in the way we all think about goods and the economy. 

We all recognise this complexity. 

But when you get down to it, we’re promoting a simple idea at this conference: 

That we should always try to wring the full life out of our resources, whenever and wherever we can. 

That every bit of rubbish that ends up in land fill is a missed opportunity. 

We know, deep down, that our current way of doing things is not sustainable. 

Human beings are currently using nature almost twice as fast as our planet can regenerate. 

In Australia, that number is even more alarming.  

If everyone lived like Australians, we would need four and a half Earths to sustain ourselves. 

That’s our most urgent motivation to change – that our planet can’t handle the resources we’re chewing through and the waste we’re piling up. 

It’s why the Australian Government has made some strong investments, with $250 million in the Recycling Modernisation Fund.

This includes an additional $60 million announced in the October budget for state of the art advanced recycling solutions for hard to recycle plastics.

But there are other compelling motivations too. 

A circular economy is good for the environment.

But there’s no doubt that it would also be good for our economy.

If we get ahead of the field, if we can seize the opportunities available to us, Australia can be a global leader in new technology, new materials, and new design. 

And by taking the lead, we can create good local jobs on the back of our expertise and creativity. 

I know my colleague, Minister Ed Husic, is determined to do that – by supporting remanufacturing as part of his $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund. 

It’s a smart investment, because there are more than three jobs in recycling for every one job in landfill.  

Think about how a circular model could work in the construction industry. 

Instead of knocking down commercial buildings when they become dated, and then trucking off a mountain of rubble to landfill, we could design them so they can be refurbished more easily.  

And when they finally reach the end of their life, they can be disassembled and reused: less waste, less use of raw materials, cheaper and better for the environment. 

And it would be an enormous win for the climate too, because concrete is so emissions intensive. 

The only limit here is our creativity. 

I’ve visited a company in Canberra, called Samsara, which uses enzymes to break down plastics to their core molecules, which can then be reused to make new plastic. 

Their processes point to the potential for ongoing recycling, a closed loop of re-used materials, taking limited new plastic which is made and remade endlessly. 

They’re still in the process of scaling up, but I find that prospect incredibly exciting – that we could be infinitely recycling plastics.

And when people see the value in recycling, they change their behaviour pretty quickly. 

Container deposit schemes substantially increase reuse, because people can see the value in bottles they once dismissed as rubbish. 

It’s our job to broaden that principle out – to show how we can apply it to different products and different industries. 

There’s been a lot of interest in the circular economy across business and government. 

I held my first meeting of state and territory Environment Ministers in October this year.

It was not just my first one, but a first for most of my colleagues.

The previous Government had not brought environment ministers together for over five hundred days.

At that meeting, all the country’s environment ministers agreed unanimously that we would work with the private sector and industry to design out waste and pollution, keep materials in use, and foster markets to achieve a circular economy by 2030.

So the intention is there – across the country.

And we’ve made some progress towards these goals, as this report we're launching today shows.

There’s some further good news today – that the ACCC has announced that Coles, Woolworths and ALDI are able to sit together around the table to work on the soft plastics issue, and to discuss how industry can tackle this problem. 

I hope to see some solid solutions from them very soon. 

But the truth is, we’re still at the very beginning of this transition, and we need to do a whole lot more to prevent waste, improve product design, and build more efficient processes.  

I know that yesterday Australian Circular Economy Hub and Planet Ark released their report, State of Circularity: Perspectives from the Field, for which I wrote the foreword.

One of central themes in the report is collaboration. 

It’s there in the case studies and the comments by industry. 

We all agree – no single organisation, region or country can make this transition alone. 

Governments need to take the lead, and businesses need to be bold in their design and production decisions. 

Which is why, today, I’m announcing that I will form a Circular Economy Ministerial Advisory Group. 

This group will advise me and my colleagues on opportunities and challenges for Australia’s transition towards a circular economy.

It will help the Government with some of the questions we’re facing, such as:

• Regulatory, commercial and other barriers to a more circular economy
• Best practice initiatives that show promise for adoption and expansion in Australia
• Circular economy research, development and innovation needs
• And effective measurement and communication about progress towards Australia’s circular economy

As Minister for the Environment and Water, I will appoint members to this Advisory Group for an initial term of two years. 

Appointments will be made on the basis of individual expertise. 

And it will be composed in such a way as to ensure a diverse range of skills and experience, while reflecting the whole-of supply-chain focus of the circular economy. 

We want people with relevant experience, with practical knowledge, and with a desire to explore new ideas. 

Which is why I’m also very pleased this morning to announce the group’s inaugural chair – Professor John Thwaites AM. 

Professor Thwaites is a Professorial Fellow at Monash University, and Chair of Monash’s Sustainable Development Institute and Climateworks Centre as well as of Melbourne Water.

John was Minister for the Environment in Victoria. 

He was the state’s first ever Climate Minister. 

And of course, he was the Deputy Premier of Victoria for eight years. 

The Monash Sustainable Development Institute has worked on many projects involving the circular economy with business and government.

John will bring his personal expertise and knowledge, along with his ability to advise how governments can best help business collaborate and pull the right regulatory levers to drive innovation and progress. 

I can't think of a better person to lead the way on sustainability and industry, and I'm excited to see what the group delivers. 

I will be announcing the other members of the Group shortly, but I am pleased that Dr Cathy Foley, Australia’s Chief Scientist, and Dr Larry Marshall, the CEO of CSIRO, have also accepted my invitation to be members of the Group

Dr Foley and Dr Marshall will provide a focus on innovation and design and help identify the research we need to undertake. Both are recognised scientific leaders, at the very top of their fields, and I look forward to the expertise they will bring to the table. 

So thank you to Planet Ark, to the Australian Circular Economy Hub, and to everyone joining us this morning. 

I hope you all feel what I feel – that we’re on the precipice of something important here.

Keep doing what you’re doing. 

And I look forward to working with all of you to make these ideas a reality over coming years. 

Thank you.