Peter Garrett in 2008. Picture: John Cokley The Chinese love auspicious occasions and today is one of them for Queensland (and for me, it turns out). Today the supermarket giant Woolworths stopped offering single-use plastic bags in our Sunshine State, and 10 years ago (in just over a month) I was lodged in a media scrum photographing then-Environment Minister Peter Garrett (left, now Midnight Oil frontman 2.0) and writing down his words that Australia probably wouldn't be banning single use plastic bags anytime soon. He was absolutely correct ... while bans filtered in gradually around the country, it's taken supermarkets in our state (where Garrett was on the day) 10 years to make the move. You can read my story here, on the then-citizen journalism site Oh My News.
Here's some of that report:
Minister Garrett is on record as urging a total phase-out of the bags by January 2009 but based on what he said today, achieving this looks extremely unlikely.
"It is within the power of the Commonwealth to do that [impose a ban] but that's not the policy position at the moment," former Midnight Oil rock singer Garrett told a packed lunch crowd in Brisbane at noon local time on Monday.
Instead, the government has opted for what it calls collaborative federalism, where it seeks to obtain a joint decision with the six states and two self-governing territories about the issue.
But the overwhelming position of the states and territories is away from a ban on the plastic shopping bags.
"Ministers from state and federal levels met in April to discuss the issue of plastic bags," Garrett said before the lunch.
"There was a range of positions put but only South Australia proposed a ban on plastic shopping bags."
Victoria proposed a trial 10 cent per bag levy to see whether this would reduce public use of the micro-thin high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bags.
Garrett said the trial would be evaluated when the country's environment ministers meet again on the issue in November.
At the current rate of reduction in Australia (two billion bags every three years), a total "phase-out" could not happen until 2011.
It turns out that in 2018, it's still a little way off.
Here's some of that report:
Minister Garrett is on record as urging a total phase-out of the bags by January 2009 but based on what he said today, achieving this looks extremely unlikely.
"It is within the power of the Commonwealth to do that [impose a ban] but that's not the policy position at the moment," former Midnight Oil rock singer Garrett told a packed lunch crowd in Brisbane at noon local time on Monday.
Instead, the government has opted for what it calls collaborative federalism, where it seeks to obtain a joint decision with the six states and two self-governing territories about the issue.
But the overwhelming position of the states and territories is away from a ban on the plastic shopping bags.
"Ministers from state and federal levels met in April to discuss the issue of plastic bags," Garrett said before the lunch.
"There was a range of positions put but only South Australia proposed a ban on plastic shopping bags."
Victoria proposed a trial 10 cent per bag levy to see whether this would reduce public use of the micro-thin high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bags.
Garrett said the trial would be evaluated when the country's environment ministers meet again on the issue in November.
At the current rate of reduction in Australia (two billion bags every three years), a total "phase-out" could not happen until 2011.
It turns out that in 2018, it's still a little way off.
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