I rise to speak on the Environment Legislation Amendment (Circular Economy and Other Matters) Bill 2022.

I will only make a couple of short points in relation to this environmental policy and investment for regional and rural Victoria.

I had a briefing last week with Environment Minister (Lily) D’Ambrosio MP on this bill, as we do with all of her bills that are brought to the Parliament.

I appreciate the opportunity this affords me to ask specific questions relating to the impact of environmental policy on regional Victoria, in particular my electorate of Northern Victoria, and I want to thank the Minister and her staff for these conversations.

With regard to the circular economy, the Rural City of Wangaratta has a great organics processing plant that has been operating for the past two years. Its current licence allows it to process 5200 tonnes of organic material each year. The current plant has capacity to process more than double this and council is working on upgrades to take its operation to 12,000 tonnes.

There is scope to further expand the facility so it benefits the whole region, by increasing its capacity to process 25,000 tonnes of organic material each year.

As a regional facility this would provide a great service to the North East, providing a saleable product to increase agricultural productivity, as well as the environmental benefit of reducing CO2 emissions and taking waste out of landfill.

During construction it would provide 10 full-time jobs and a further $3 million to the local economy. With increased processing capacity, this would providing long-term additional employment and economic benefits through the supply chain. 

In our meeting last week, the Minister noted the importance of this kind of innovation to achieving the benefits of a circular economy. The project will need investment of around $8m to achieve this expansion and I am now seeking a meeting for the Rural City with the government to present its business case.

More broadly than these types of specific advocacy, as regional MPs both Mr (Stuart) Grimley and I always push for government policy to give regard to the opportunities, benefits and impacts of policy that are specific to regional and rural Victoria. 

This includes recognising the risk and impact of natural disaster such as bushfire and flood, understanding the impact of energy policy on the security and reliability of energy in regional areas, and knowing that policy directives towards large-scale wind farms and solar farms may be seen to provide opportunity but also impacts our valuable agricultural land. 

Solar panels are the greatest growing stream of e-waste and how we manage them at their end-of-life continues to be an elephant in the room. Solar panels are banned from going into landfill, so they are stockpiling while recycling opportunities remain limited.

It is estimated that more than 100,000 tonnes of solar panels will be in Australia’s waste stream by 2035, and with 83pc of the materials not recycled there either needs to be a cost-effective solution or a shift in policy.

Failure to complete the Murray Basin Rail Project to its original scope means that 800,000 tonnes of freight will go by road instead of rail every year – that’s 19 million truck kilometres, and the carbon emissions and degradation to regional roads that goes with it.

On the other hand, completing the plan to scope would add millions to economic productivity, manufacturing and mining opportunities, green hydrogen production and other investment prospects.

I believe that considering the economic, employment and social impacts of policy decisions on rural and regional Victoria should be embedded in our legislation.

The Independent Member for Indi (Dr Helen Haines MP) recently made some steps toward this with amendments to federal legislation and I have discussed with the Minister what opportunities exist for Victoria to do the same.

Analysis that Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party had done by the Parliamentary Budget Office last year showed the regional Victoria is at least 11pc worse off than our metropolitan counterparts when it comes to asset investment.

Earlier this year I called for regional impact statements to be included in the annual budget process and believe there are opportunities to embed this across all policy and portfolio areas so our regional areas get the consideration they deserve.

I thank the House.