The Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities consulted with stakeholders on the cost recovery models for voluntary product stewardship in February 2012 and June 2012. The Department also consulted extensively with the Department of Finance and Deregulation on the fee structure and fee charges.

 

The Regulation is a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.

 

The Regulation commences on the day after registration on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATTACHMENT

Details of the Product Stewardship Regulation 2012

 

Part 1 - Preliminary

 

Section 1 - Name of Regulation

 

This section provides that the title of the Regulation is the Product Stewardship Regulation 2012.

 

Section 2 - Commencement

 

This section provides for the Regulation to commence on the day after it is registered on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments.

 

Section 3 - Definitions

 

This section defines a number of terms for the Regulation including, the categories of activities related to products or waste that a voluntary product stewardship arrangement relates to.

 

Category 1 is defined to include only manufacturing activity related to products or waste. The terms 'product' and 'waste' are relevantly defined in section 6 of the Act. An example of a manufacturing activity may include producing a product that contains less hazardous substances. The benefit being that there would be less exposure of hazardous substances to workers during the production process and harm to the environment when the product is determined to be waste.

 

An application for the accreditation of a voluntary product stewardship arrangement that includes product design may be considered for accreditation, so long as the outcomes of the arrangement result in the manufacture of the product. The development of design concepts alone will not be sufficient to meet the requirements for category 1. Therefore, an application that includes product design must also include manufacture to fall within category 1.

 

Category 2 is defined to include the following activities related to products or waste: supply, use or supply and use. Such arrangements may include activities relating to transportation (shipping, trucking, and rail), retail, wholesalers, trading, distribution and/or storage for the purposes of supply or use, or supply and use. An example in this category may include a paint retailer's efforts to reduce the amount of paint wasted by consumers. This could involve educating and assisting consumers to only purchase enough paint to meet their needs at the time of supply, thereby reducing the amount of paint that would potentially be disposed of as waste.

 

Category 3 is defined to include any of the following activities related to products or waste: reuse, recycling, recovery, disposal or a combination of the latter four activities.

 

The note to section 3 refers readers to section 6 of the Act for definitions of the terms 'product', 'recover', 'voluntary arrangement' and 'waste'. Section 6 of the Act contains the list of every term defined in the Act.

Part 9 - Miscellaneous

 

Section 9.1 Fees - application for accreditation of voluntary arrangement

 

Subsection 9.1(1) specifies, for the purpose of subparagraph 102(1)(b)(ii) of the Act, application fees for the accreditation of voluntary arrangements that involve the activities in categories 1, 2 and 3. Subparagraph 102(1)(b)(ii) of the Act provides that application fees may be specified in regulations made under the Act.

 

The fees that may be charged pursuant to subparagraph 102(1)(b)(ii) of the Act are fees for service. The fees have been calculated based on the total costs associated with processing and assessing an application. These costs are comprised of staff labour, including remuneration (i.e. salary and superannuation) and overheads (e.g. long service leave, worker's compensation premium, staff training and development costs, human resource support costs, organisational service costs, accommodation costs and IT costs).

 

Applications for voluntary product stewardship accreditation are expected to cover a wide range of products and stewardship activities, and include complex and technical matters. The fees therefore include the cost of engaging technical services to assess an arrangement's technical viability. The calculated fees for this cost have been set conservatively and assume that the technical assessment process for each application will be similar.

 

The structure of the fees has been determined based on the complexity of an arrangement. More complex arrangements will have more outcomes and therefore take longer to assess.

Higher fees are also payable for applications relating to more than one category of activity.

 

Paragraph 9.1(a) provides that an application that includes an activity identified in one category is $20 600 (excluding GST).

 

Paragraph 9.1(b) provides that an application that includes activity in 2 categories is $23 600 (excluding GST).

 

Paragraph 9.1(c) provides that an application that includes activity in 3 categories is $26 600 (excluding GST).

 

Subsection 9.1(2) makes clear that if an application involves a combination of activities from a single category, the combination of activities only counts as one category of activity. For example, an application for accreditation that involves supply and use mentioned in paragraph (c) of the definition of category 2 would count as one category of activity and any combination of activities mentioned in the definition of category 3 would count as one category of activity.

 

The examples following subsection 9.1(2) indicate the fees that would be payable for various applications. Example 1 demonstrates that if an application involves only 'supply and use' (mentioned in paragraph (c) of the definition of category 2 in section 3) the fee specified in paragraph 9.1(1)(a), i.e. $20 600 (excluding GST) is payable. The fee of $20 600 (excluding GST) will apply to all applications that involve only one category of activity i.e. one activity selected from either category 1; or category 2; or category 3.

 

Example 2 demonstrates that if an application involves 'supply and use' (mentioned in paragraph (c) of the definition of category 2 in section 3) and a combination of activities from paragraph (e) of the definition of category 3, such as 'reuse, recycling, recovery and disposal', the fee specified in paragraph 9.1(1)(b), i.e. $23 600 (excluding GST) is payable. The fee of $23 600 (excluding GST) will apply to all applications that involve:

o   one activity selected from category 1 and one activity selected from category 2; or

o   one activity selected from category 2 and one activity selected from category 3; or

o   one activity selected from category 1 and one activity selected from category 3.

 

Example 3 demonstrates that if an application involves activities from all 3 categories i.e. 'manufacturing' (category 1), 'supply or use, or supply and use' (category 2) and 'reuse, recycling, recovery and disposal' (category 3) the fee specified in paragraph 9.1(1)(c), i.e.

$26 600 (excluding GST) is payable.