LAURA JAYES, HOST: Well, there is no doubt Australians are doing it really tough at the moment. We see mortgage rates increase, they're getting harder to pay, rent becoming unaffordable, energy prices are about to go up and inflation is still making essential items really expensive. The second Labor Budget is just around the corner. And joining me live now as the Environment and Water Minister, Tanya Plibersek. Thanks so much for your time.
Look, it was really interesting to speak to Bill Evans. He's a Chief Economist at Westpac earlier this week. He says that there are literally people at the moment who cannot pay their mortgage. They're starting to default, they can't afford to put food on the table in many cases. He also pointed out that LMITO has been extended a number of times, but that is going to come off at the end of July. That costs the Budget around $7.2 billion a year. He said to replace that, you really need to see, and the government really needs to see, those most vulnerable looked after with direct payments. Is that something Jim Chalmers is going to do?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well, I'm not going to speculate on what's in the next Budget, but I will remind you of our record and we've supported pay increases, we've obviously supported the largest increase in welfare benefits, indexation of pensions and other payments - the largest in twelve years. We've reduced the cost of medicines. Childcare costs will go down dramatically for about 1.2 million families. We know that the cost of living is a real problem for Australian families and that's why we're focussing on this sort of relief that really does help family budgets. Of course, our energy package was designed to bring down energy prices, which are also a big impost on family budgets. We've also got to repair the structural problems in the economy. We know, for example, that we've got skill shortages right across the country and that's contributing to inflation. That's the problem that the Reserve Bank's trying to fix. So, we've got to get into that economic reform area as well. And of course, when we have had bigger than expected receipts in the Budget, we've put that towards actually repairing the Budget as well. We were left with close to a trillion dollars of debt. Australian taxpayers are paying interest on close to a trillion dollars of debt from the previous government. Unless we begin to tackle that, the structural problems in the economy will continue to see the inflation problems that we've got.
JAYES: Millions of families doing it tough, literally millions are getting that low and middle-income tax offset at the moment. So, when July rolls around, it's going to feel like a tax hike. Is there an argument to maybe extend that again?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, like I say, I'm not going to speculate on what's in the next budget. The Treasurer, the Finance Minister and the economics team are hard at work on that at the moment. But we know that families are doing it tough. That's why we backed that minimum wage case as well. That's just another example of the sort of difference we can make to the cost-of-living pressures that families are facing. We have to do that. We're very conscious of it. We know that this is common around the world at the moment. Economies like ours are facing even higher inflation rates than we're facing here in Australia, but that's not an excuse not to tackle it here in Australia. We have to really work with families to give them some cost-of-living relief.
JAYES: Okay. I want to talk about the Greens leader, Adam Bandt. He has money in a super fund that has been criticised for investing in fossil fuels. Now we know where he stands on fossil fuels, he wants your government to cancel any future projects. Is he a hypocrite?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I'm not going to comment on the individual financial arrangements of other members of Parliament. I think what he's doing is perfectly legal. And he's disclosed it properly, I assume. So that's his business.
I think what it shows is that the Australian economy is still very reliant on minerals and mining for the wealth that we generate that pays for the sort of services and life that we want here in Australia. We have a commitment as a government to get to 82 per cent renewables in our energy grid by 2030. That is a massive transformation of our energy market. We want to see that because we know that in the long run, renewables are cheaper and cleaner, better for the environment, but also more cost-effective. In the meanwhile, we're still going to see reliance on coal and gas. This is not a sector of the economy that could be switched off overnight even if you wanted to. And I think it would be helpful if the Greens recognise that we are on this massive energy transition, but that coal and gas are going to be part of our future for years to come.
JAYES: Let's talk about soft plastics as well, because there is a massive problem with recycling them at the moment. There's a roadmap that's meant to restart by the end of 2023, but supermarkets say it probably won't happen till the end of 2025 or the beginning of 2025. What is the fundamental problem here?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, the fundamental problem is that the previous government set targets for recycling and they never acted to deliver on them. So, Australia has a target of recycling 70 per cent of our plastics by 2025 and when that target was set, we're at 16 per cent, four years later, we're still at 16 per cent. So, I'm very keen to work with the big supermarket companies to address this problem of recycling. We've got a $250 million recycling modernisation fund and $60 million of that is focussed on hard-to-recycle plastics, like soft plastics. We're building that infrastructure now. We've got about 48 facilities under construction or opening. We need to get the recycling infrastructure up and running.
We also need to produce less plastic waste in the first place, so I'm working with environment ministers around the state on a national packaging strategy. We've got to be using less virgin plastic in particular in the first place, replacing plastics with easier-to-recycle, reuse, compost biodegradable type materials. The supermarket problem right now with REDcycle, I'm very pleased that Coles and Woolies have taken responsibility for about 12,000 tonnes of soft plastics that have been building up in warehouses under this scheme for years now. It's good that they've taken responsibility for that waste because they are the main generators of that waste. But the system beyond that of collecting and recycling, we really need to work together with state and local government as well to make sure we've got basically the recycling facilities that can cope.
JAYES: Well, can they cope at the moment? Because I remember a couple of years ago, long before you were the Environment Minister, we had a crisis on our hands. Essentially, all those coloured bins that you painstakingly divide your rubbish into, well, it didn't matter anymore. It was all going to landfill because China essentially stopped buying or taking this kind of recycling. Has that fixed itself? Is there a problem here - a broader problem, that undermines the behaviour and the culture of people wanting to recycle, but it's just not happening?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, I would say to people it is absolutely still worth recycling because we are building and upgrading these recycling facilities all the time. So please keep recycling. And as I say, we've got about 48 facilities under construction or opening at the moment. That absolutely does help, but we've got to go further up the sort of way that we design packaging and other products as well. If you look around the world, there's a lot of work being done on designing products that can be better reused, that can be repaired, that can be remanufactured. One of the reasons we've got $3 billion set aside in the National Reconstruction Fund, which we're debating right now in the House of Representatives, is because we know that we have this enormous capacity to remanufacture here in Australia. For every job that is created by dumping stuff in landfill, we actually create three jobs when we are recycling and remanufacturing those products. So, we have a growing industry, we've got an enormous jobs capacity, we've got incredible Australian products and designers here that are doing enzyme-based recycling, for example, that are developing products like algae-based plastics. We've got so much opportunity to reduce waste in the design phase of products. We've got to get money into that upstream, real opportunity we have to improve what we're doing for the environment.
JAYES: Just before I let you go, it was International Women's Day yesterday, and I note the piece in the paper last weekend about your incredible daughter, Anna, and the difficult decision you made not to put your hand up for the leadership of the Labor Party after the last election. Not the last election, the one before that. In light of that, have you kind of redefined in yourself what a leader is and what a leader can do? And I say that because I think you can have a title, but not essentially be a leader and have an impact on those closest to you.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I think, Laura, I've said many times that some of the most inspiring people I meet are this generation of young activists. People like well, obviously, I'm very proud of my daughter, but young women like Grace Tame, like Saxon Mullins, who've stood up and argued for law reform for crimes like domestic violence and sexual violence that affect so many, many Australians. They are truly inspiring. They are leaders. I see that in this area of women's rights. I see it in the environment, obviously, young people showing incredible leadership, and it does give me a lot of hope and faith for the future.
JAYES: It also struck me as well, even now, how difficult it is to be a mother and have a career. Do you reflect on that?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, well, there was one year on International Women's Day, I was the Shadow Minister for Women, and I'd put out an embargoed press release the night before about the growing gender pay gap. We just had new gender pay gap figures. My husband was walking out the door at five in the morning. I had a crying baby that I was breastfeeding to keep quiet while I was doing radio interviews. I thought, wow, International Women's Day, I really have got it all. I think, look, we have to celebrate the successes. I have so many more choices than my grandmother had, or even my mother, and I want that progress to continue. But we still have a ways to go, and especially in areas of economic inequality, the gender pay gap, superannuation gap and violence against women. One in five Australian women over the age of 15 has experienced sexual violence. One in three will experience domestic violence. It is just not good enough. Not yet.
JAYES: I agree. I do have that glass half full approach like you, though, as I reflect on International Women's Day, but still a lot more to do. Let's have a longer conversation next time. Thanks so much.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look forward to it.
