Section 35 of the Product Stewardship (Oil) Act 2000 requires the minister to prepare an annual report about the operation of the product stewardship arrangements for oil (including the Act). This section provides the report for the period from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020.

Operation

The program provides economic incentives for the environmentally sustainable management, re-refining and re-use of used oil. A levy on oil sales helps fund the cost of recycling used oil. We have policy responsibility for the program, but it is administered by the Australian Taxation Office. The Treasurer sets the levy rate under the Excise Tariff Act 1921 and the Customs Tariff Act 1995.

On 1 July 2014 the Treasurer increased the product stewardship oil levy to 8.5 cents per litre of lubricant or equivalent oil. The levy applies to both domestically produced and imported oil. The levy is collected as an excise by the Australian Taxation Office and as customs duty by the Department of Home Affairs. Exported oil is not levied.

Data on the outlays and collections of the Product Stewardship for Oil (PSO) Program was not available at the time of preparing this report, as the data is sourced from external data holdings and independently verified by the Australian National Audit Office. This data will be made available in the second half of 2020 at our website.

Product Stewardship (Oil) Amendment Bill 2020

Product Stewardship (Oil) Amendment Bill 2020 was introduced into the House of Representatives on 14 May 2020. The purpose of this Bill is to amend the definition of oils in the Product Stewardship (Oil) Act 2000 to apply only to lubricant oils, fluid oils and other oils and greases manufactured from base oils. This will reflect the original intention of the PSO Program, which excludes diesel and other fuels.