Thursday, 15 August 2019

 Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:00): My question is to the Minister for Local Government. Minister, I note advice to government is currently being prepared by Infrastructure Victoria on recycling and resource recovery infrastructure. Is Local Government Victoria, or are you as Minister for Local Government, providing input to Infrastructure Victoria that reflects the views of and challenges confronting councils in the recycling crisis? If so, what will the nature of the input be, and if not, why not?

Members interjecting.

The PRESIDENT: Minister, as best you can with your portfolio.

 Mr SOMYUREK (South Eastern Metropolitan—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Small Business) (12:01): I would like to thank the member for his question. As I said yesterday, there is an international crisis on this issue. It is a serious issue. What we are doing as a government is working with the sector, working with local government and working with industry in order to find a long-term, sustainable solution to this very, very complex problem. The Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, who has portfolio responsibilities in this area, has been doing a fantastic job working on this particular issue. One of the things that she has been doing is formulating a circular economy plan. What she is going to be doing is expediting that process and that will be released fairly soon.

What we did a couple of days ago was announce an $11.1 million plan to help ease a bit of the financial burden on councils. Since China made its decision to not accept low-grade waste from overseas countries, we have provided over $135 million to the sector in order to ease the pain and help councils renegotiate contracts. What we will be doing is utilising all policy instruments that the government has available to it to come up with a long-term sustainable solution to this problem. If that means making submissions to any inquiry, that is exactly what we will be doing.

 Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:03): I note that he did not answer the simple question of whether he or Local Government Victoria is putting material to the Infrastructure Victoria inquiry.

Members interjecting.

Mr DAVIS: Yes, I do. My simple—

Members interjecting.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Mr Davis still has 37 seconds.

Mr DAVIS: Thank you. My simple question to the minister is: will you ensure that the Municipal Association of Victoria’s (MAV) voice is heard with this Infrastructure Victoria inquiry?

 Mr SOMYUREK (South Eastern Metropolitan—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Small Business) (12:04): I cannot claim to be responsible for what the MAV do, whether they put in a submission to any inquiries or not. I am not responsible for and I do not have control over the MAV. I assume that the MAV will because they are a good organisation. They are an activist organisation. I assume that they will put in a submission, but then again they may not. I cannot direct them. I cannot direct the MAV to put in a submission.