Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities

Operation of the Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Act 1997

This annual report is prepared in accordance with section 43 of the Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Act 1997 (the NHT Act) and reports on the operation of the NHT Act for the period 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013. The NHT Act requires the report to include the financial statements relating to the operations of the Account and the Auditor-General’s report on the financial statements. This information is in the Financial Statements section of the annual report.

Activities carried out under the NHT Act are integral to achieving the department’s outcomes on biodiversity and ecosystems. Consequently, some of these activities are reported on elsewhere in this annual report. The Natural Heritage Trust provides the principal funding stream to support the government’s Caring for our Country initiative.

Purpose and objectives of the Natural Heritage Trust

The Natural Heritage Trust was established by the NHT Act to conserve, repair and replenish Australia’s natural resources. It is administered by the Natural Heritage Ministerial Board, which in 2012–13 comprised the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

In order to meet the objectives of the NHT Act, the Australian Government invests in national priority areas of natural resource management, predominantly through the Caring for our Country initiative.

Caring for our Country

The government established Caring for our Country in 2008 to:

• 
  conserve, protect and restore the Australian environment by making it healthier, better protected, well managed and resilient
  
• 
  secure our farming resource base and support sustainability of food and fibre industries by focusing on protecting ecosystems and promoting biodiversity, clean air and water and healthy soils
  
• 
  ensure that, in a changing climate, we can continue to provide a diversity of ecological services that Australians rely on.
  

The 2010–11 and the 2011–12 Caring for our Country Report Cards were released in March and June 2013 respectively. The report cards detail annual achievements and progress on the Caring for our Country five-year outcomes, including contributions made by projects funded under the Natural Heritage Trust and the other appropriations that contribute to the Caring for our Country initiative. Report cards are available on the Caring for our Country website at: www.nrm.gov.au.

Until 30 June 2013 Caring for our Country was managed jointly by the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. From 1 July 2013, the second five-year phase of Caring for our Country will commence. Future Caring for our Country funding will be administered as two streams—Sustainable Environment and Sustainable Agriculture—by the respective departments, working in close cooperation.

Operation of the Product Stewardship Act 2011

Purpose

The National Waste Policy, agreed by environment ministers in November 2009 and endorsed by Council of Australian Governments in October 2010, provides the strategic national framework for waste management and resource recovery to 2020. The policy set six key directions and identified 16 priority strategies that would benefit from a national or coordinated approach.

The Product Stewardship Act 2011 came into effect on 8 August 2011, delivering on a key commitment by the Australian Government under Strategy 1 of the National Waste Policy. The Act provides a national framework to effectively manage the environmental, health and safety impacts of products and, in particular, those impacts associated with the disposal of products.

The objectives of the Act are to:

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  reduce the impact that products have on the environment, throughout their life cycle
  
• 
  reduce the impact that substances contained in products have on the environment, and on the health and safety of human beings, throughout the lives of those products
  
• 
  contribute to Australia meeting its international obligations concerning the impacts referred to above
  
• 
  contribute to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted, energy used and water consumed in connection with products and waste from products.
  

Operation

The Act provides for three levels of product stewardship: voluntary, co-regulatory and mandatory.

Voluntary product stewardship

The Act provides for organisations to voluntarily seek accreditation by the Australian Government for product stewardship arrangements that meet specified quality requirements. The purpose of voluntary accreditation is to provide an avenue for encouraging and recognising industry initiated product stewardship and to provide assurance to the community that a voluntary product stewardship arrangement is operating to achieve the outcomes it has committed to achieve.

In November 2012 the Product Stewardship Regulation 2012 and the Product Stewardship (Voluntary Arrangements) Instrument 2012 came into effect. The regulation and instrument support the accreditation of voluntary product stewardship arrangements and specify the application fees for the accreditation of arrangements under the Act. The first application round for accreditation under the Act opened in June 2013.

Co-regulatory product stewardship

The National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme, established by the Product Stewardship (Televisions and Computers) Regulations 2011, is the first co-regulatory scheme under the Product Stewardship Act 2011. The scheme sets annual recycling targets for televisions and computers. Collection and recycling is funded by importers and manufacturers of these products through membership fees paid to industry-run co-regulatory arrangements. Co-regulatory arrangements are approved by the Australian Government to deliver against the outcomes of providing reasonable access to collection services, meeting annual recycling targets and, from 2014 to 2015, meeting a material recovery target.

All of the importers and manufacturers identified as liable parties under the scheme in 2012–13 have complied with their obligation to join a co-regulatory arrangement. Three co-regulatory arrangements were operational in 2012–13, with two further arrangements approved to commence operation.

A total of 482 television and computer collection services have been provided to the community under the scheme, including 388 ongoing collection sites and 94 temporary collection events.

The department’s experience in implementing the scheme, combined with feedback from stakeholders, drives a program based on review and continuous improvement. Through the first recycling target year, the department highlighted a number of areas in which the scheme could be improved through streamlined administrative processes. This included televisions and computers being combined into one product class and therefore one recycling target from 2013–14 onwards. This change simplifies the collection and recycling of these products, thereby having a positive influence on costs to industry and the on-ground delivery.

Regulatory (mandatory) product stewardship

The Act provides for mandatory product stewardship, where both requirements and outcomes are prescribed in regulations. There are currently no mandatory product stewardship schemes in place. There were no regulations under development for mandatory product stewardship schemes under the Act in 2012–13.

Product Stewardship Advisory Group

Section 108B of the Act establishes the Product Stewardship Advisory Group. The role of the group is to provide independent advice to the minister for consideration in developing a list of products for potential consideration, during the next financial year, for some form of accreditation or regulation under the Act. Members are appointed on the basis that they have appropriate qualification, knowledge and experience. The Product Stewardship Regulation 2012 sets out the group’s remuneration. In June 2013 the parliamentary secretary published the first annual product list.

Table 2: Membership of the Product Stewardship Advisory Group at 30 June 2013

Name	Start	Finish
Ms Kathleen Mackie (Chair)	21 November 2012	20 November 2015
Mr Jeff Angel	21 November 2012	20 November 2015
Ms Rebecca Brown	21 November 2012	20 November 2015
Dr Peter Burn	21 November 2012	20 November 2015
Mr Philip Casey	21 November 2012	20 November 2015
Mr John Gertsakis	21 November 2012	20 November 2015
Ms Karen Gomez	21 November 2012	20 November 2015
Mr Russ Martin	21 November 2012	20 November 2015
Ms Rose Read	21 November 2012	20 November 2015
Ms Val Southam	21 November 2012	20 November 2015

Reporting

This section fulfils the reporting requirements of the Product Stewardship Act 2011 (section 107) for the period 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013.