Victorian Premier Denis Napthine sought national consensus on a 10-cent refundable deposit on drink containers at the 13 December COAG meeting.
The move was welcomed by the public, as the most recent Newspoll showed 85% support by Australians.
"The public battle has been well and truly won – it's now time for our leaders to agree to implement an efficient, least-cost and convenient container deposits scheme (CDS). Premier Napthine's commitment to take it to COAG is a stunning break in the inertia that has characterised this issue for the last ten years," said Jeff Angel, national convenor of the Alliance.
"We particularly urge the NSW Premier to get on board. Along with the sensible people in the beverage industry, we can all work constructively together to ensure an efficient and least-cost CDS that delivers multiple economic, social, employment and environmental benefits worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year."
Chairman of CleanUp Australia Ian Kiernan AO said: "Once a government moves on introducing a CDS, it will then find hundreds of thousands of people willing to defend it against the ill-informed attacks by the beverage industry. I can assure the Premier and other heads of state, we will be out there making sure the public knows this is a great policy for the environment and the economy."
Jeff Angel said the claims of a $300 impost on households had been proven to be completely wrong. "It won't happen because of the absurd assumptions that no-one will redeem the 10-cent deposit and the crazy high handling fees. We estimate, based on real CDS operations that are efficient, that there will be no extra handling fee on the price of drinks."
"With two weeks to go for a possible national decision, our campaign will go into overdrive. Of course, if there is no national decision we will continue to harness the incredible support in the community to obtain state schemes."
