Submissions
ASBG Submission On the Productivity Commission's Draft Waste Review Report
ASBG largely supports the Productivity Commission's views on the way in which waste is handled by government policy. However, there is too much momentum behind the current poor waste strategies, which will cost Australian's more and may also lead to perverse outcomes where environmental harm is increased. We strongly support the need for better data on all types of wastes and where they go. An example, of the lack of data on waste is the work ASBG has done on contaminated soils sent to landfill and the counter waste minimisation policy regulations, which encourage it. The NSW waste levy is especially criticized as well as the extremely low proportion of revenue that is returned to waste research and evaluation.
 Submission On the Productivity Commission's Draft Waste Review Report | 140 kB |
ASBG supported the proposed name change for the National Pollutant Inventory (NPI) to the National Emissions Inventory. The main issue addressed was the proposed inclusion of transfers. Transfers include the NPI substances that appear in waste and wastewater streams set to another party who usually treat or dispose of the materials. ASBG considers there are 2 types of approaches to generate NPI data for transfers, both of which are undesirable. As wastes a notoriously variable the use of estimation techniques, based on a handful of analysis will provide meaningless data. If on the other hand NPI data was collected to a meaningful level, this would be very costly and lead to the export of Australian jobs.
ASBG Submission COAG's Greenhouse Gas Mandatory Reporting Scheme
In a similar process to the NPI COAG is establishing a mandatory greenhouse reporting Scheme. ASBG identified a number of issues for COAG to consider especially the extreme under estimation of the cost to companies in reporting to such a scheme. An estimate by COAG of $2,100 per company was considerably lower than ASBG member feedback of between $40,000 to $50,000 per site! Lack of consistency with the Energy Efficiency Opportunities scheme on joint ventures and concern over commercial-in-confidence information and public access via Freedom of Information legislation. COAG recommended that companies can write and be assessed to attain commercial-in-confidence protection, whereas ASBG recommended that protection be automatic.
ASBG wrote to the DECC suggesting the use of insurance policies as an alternative to Bank Guarantees (BG) for covering Financial Assurances. Two models were offered: a hybrid where both BG and insurance policy work together and a stand alone insurance policy. The letter addresses the DECC's concerns in relation to insurance products such as, immediate access to moneys for emergency clean up, ability to deal with insolvencies, legal challenges and control over the clean up. See More....
| Financial Assurance - Use of Insurance Policies | 52 kB |
