Lara waste-to-energy facility
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (13:22): Last week I went to a community meeting with constituents in Lara about the proposed Prospect Hill International waste incinerator. On the day of the meeting Recycling Victoria revealed that the proposal would not receive a licence under the waste incineration cap. Lara was not on the list; many other sites were, however. The Lara community have cautiously welcomed this outcome after years of community campaigning, but they are reluctant to celebrate, because the development licence from the EPA still exists and the minister has yet to decide about planning approval. Moreover, the Labor state government has twice now increased the annual waste incineration cap for Victoria. It was 1 million tonnes in 2022, then increased to 2 million and most recently to 2.5 million. They have indicated they might be willing to go up to 3 million tonnes, leaving plenty of room for a future approval of the Lara waste incinerator. It was a bittersweet event, as I said. A number of other communities around Victoria on that same day had waste incinerators essentially one step closer to being reality with that Recycling Victoria announcement. The pursuit of waste incineration by this state government at the expense of public health, the environment and the climate is outright negligent. No community should be dealing with these proposals, and we will not give up the fight against them.