New measures to ensure that drink prices don’t rise beyond reasonable levels following the introduction of a container deposit scheme have been announced by Minister for Transport and City Services, Meegan Fitzharris.
The Minister said prices would be monitored one month before and 12 months following the implementation of the scheme.
“The container deposit scheme will encourage Canberrans to do the right thing to reduce litter and waste to landfill,” Ms Fitzharris said.
“It is not an opportunity for beverage companies to arbitrarily or excessively increase prices, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on them.”
She said her Directorate had been watching the rollout of the container deposit scheme in NSW and had learned from that experience.
“The costs of running the container deposit scheme will be funded by the beverage industry, and we expect the industry may try to recover costs by increasing the retail price of beverages,” Ms Fitzharris said.
“We want to make sure Canberrans are treated fairly, so we want to know if any beverage price increases are excessive and don’t reflect the actual costs incurred to fund the container deposit scheme.”
She said she had engaged the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) to undertake the monitoring of prices.
“The ICRC will make recommendations to the Government, and the Government will respond to any issues that need to be addressed,” Ms Fitzharris said.
The container deposit scheme will be launched on 30 June with collection points to be located in residential and industrial catchment areas.
