Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Committees

Economy and Infrastructure Committee

Reference

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:13): I move:

That this house requires the Economy and Infrastructure Committee to inquire into, consider and report, by August 2026, on the development and expansion of waste-to-energy (WTE) infrastructure in Victoria, including:

(1) the suitability of existing WTE infrastructure plans and policies, including:

(a) the proximity of WTE projects to residential communities and transport infrastructure;

(b) annual caps on waste that can be used in thermal WTE processing;

(2) economic, social, and environmental consequences of WTE, including from:

(a) the terms of commercial arrangements between proposed WTE operators and governments;

(b) separating recycling and organic material from WTE streams;

(c) nature and management of emissions, toxic waste and ash byproducts;

(d) the cost–benefit of WTE generation to consumers and businesses;

(3) alternative waste management approaches and emerging technologies that better align with circular economy principles, having regard to the recommendations of the Environment and Planning Committee’s 2020 inquiry into recycling and waste management and the role of WTE in the Victorian government’s circular economy plan;

(4) the adequacy of community consultation and social licensing; and

(5) any other related matters.

I rise to make a contribution to this motion, 1002, in my name. This motion requires the Economy and Infrastructure Committee to inquire into, consider and report on the development and expansion of waste-to-energy infrastructure in Victoria.

For the uninitiated, waste to energy involves turning waste into energy resources and can include a wide range of technologies, including incineration. For those of us young enough to remember, this might conjure up images of backyard incinerators where households used to burn their waste. Make no mistake, these waste-to-energy facilities are not your grandparents’ backyard – or in my case my parents’ backyard – but they will be burning through millions of tonnes of Victoria’s waste. I would like to think we have come a long way since the time of the backyard incinerators. We have learned about that little thing called climate change and how to reduce, reuse and recycle, and yet puzzlingly the government’s waste management agenda of the future looks a lot like the waste management of the past.

In Victoria we have more waste-to-energy projects in the works than all other Australian jurisdictions combined, and the annual cap on the amount of waste that can be burnt has increased by 150 per cent in three years to 2.5 million tonnes. Just last week seven new licences were granted for new waste-to-energy projects. While at the same time it was good to see, in the same announcement, that plans for the Lara facility were rejected, it should not take the opposition of the Deputy Prime Minister for community concerns to be heard. Residents, council and the Geelong Chamber of Commerce all raised concerns about the level of odour and air pollution this plant could produce, with some homes mere hundreds of metres away. Similar concerns are held by all communities where these facilities are proposed. Once these projects reach full capacity, the vast majority of waste in Victoria could be taken from landfill to be burnt. This represents one of the most significant shifts in waste management policy in Victoria’s history. It is deeply concerning that this major shift in waste management policy is happening at the same time as this government is gutting hundreds of jobs from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. In today’s changing climate, we must ask ourselves if this is part of the future we want for Victoria, a future where we are creating even more ways of polluting the people and planet.

When it comes to waste to energy, we need to examine the suitability of existing plans and policies, the adequacy of community consultation and opportunities for greater alignment with Victoria’s circular economy plans. A parliamentary inquiry will allow us to listen to the experts and fully understand the consequences of waste-to-energy transition. Communities, particularly those who may end up living next to these facilities, deserve to understand what the consequences will be. We need to look at the proximity of these facilities to residential areas and transport infrastructure. Communities should not be made to live next to these facilities and deal with hundreds of trucks full of waste barrelling down their local roads at all hours of the day. Infrastructure plans and policies also must be examined to ensure they can cope with the rapid growth of waste to energy.

The cap on the amount of waste that can be burnt in Victoria has gone up and up and up again. It may be 2.5 million tonnes now, but what could it be next year, and can the infrastructure keep up? Our motion requires an investigation into the economic, social and environmental consequences of the waste-to-energy transition. Commercial arrangements between proposed waste-to-energy project operators and various levels of government are also something that should be questioned. We should not be allowing decades-long contracts for these incinerators that require a certain amount of waste to be generated each year. All this does is incentivise waste generation and the importation of waste from other jurisdictions. We have seen that happen overseas; I am not making this stuff up.

While we are pleased to see that the government’s waste-to-energy plans emphasise the importance of separating out organic and recycling materials, we are concerned that in practice, is this actually happening? To understand our concerns, you only need to look as far as the Recycling Resources from Waste April report from the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office. This report highlights several ways in which the Victorian government is failing to manage waste heading to landfill. In the last decade recycling in Victoria has been in a state of crisis following China’s closure to low-grade Australian recyclables. From 2019 to 2020 this meant that, according to Sustainability Victoria, 63.7 per cent of Victoria’s recycling went into landfill. While Victoria’s recycling capacity has increased since then, these extensions are slowing. The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office found that there were gaps in mandatory reporting by some operators, and we do not know how much organic matter is actually being sent to landfill. They also found that the amount of waste going to landfill has not changed since the government announced their circular economy strategy in 2019. That strategy is 10 years long and we are halfway through, and to see that there has been no change in the amount of waste going to landfill is astounding. With a track record like this, how are we meant to trust that recycling and organic waste will not just be sent to be burnt at these waste-to-energy incinerations?

We also have concerns about the nature and management of emissions, toxic waste and ash by-products. In the UK nearly half of the rubbish produced is incinerated. An examination by the BBC found that burning rubbish was their dirtiest form of power, producing the same amount of greenhouse gases for each unit of energy as coal power. It is no surprise that many places in the UK are restricting the construction of more waste-to-energy facilities. On top of this, most waste-to-energy facilities produce residues and by-products, including toxic ash, which can contain heavy metals and toxins. It is a falsehood to say that waste to energy is part of the circular economy when this process creates toxic waste. In my region Hampton Park residents have fought strongly against a waste transfer station that was planned to package up rubbish from nine councils and ship it off to a waste-to-energy plant in Maryvale. The proposed operator Veolia had been the subject of numerous complaints and litigation over their management of their landfill site. It is no wonder that these communities have little trust that the operators of waste-to-energy facilities will not fall victim to mismanagement and fail to responsibly deal with toxic by-products. Surely we can do better.

With that in mind, our motion requires an investigation into alternative waste management approaches and emerging technologies that better align with circular economy principles. It is important to remember that not all waste to energy is created equally. In central Victoria there is a farm that started investing in waste-to-energy technology about 30 years ago using anaerobic digestion. This is pretty interesting, because trillions of tiny anaerobic bacteria break down manure waste, which creates gas that can then be used to power machinery, and the waste generated can be used as fertiliser. Some of these technologies are truly innovative, and more are developing every day, but others, like incineration, leave a lot to be desired.

When this government are faced with the option of burning their waste or investing in innovative alternatives, they have a history of going with the easy option. In 2020 the Legislative Council Environment and Planning Committee conducted an inquiry into recycling and waste management. Included in a small part of this was waste to energy, which was heralded as the solution for Victoria’s waste woes. The reality is that there are solutions for dealing with waste, but they just take a bit more effort and ambition than incinerating it and setting it on fire. Reducing the amount of waste generated and better separating different waste streams is a really good place to start. A lot has changed since the 2020 inquiry, and the government appear to be at a critical juncture where they are turning Victoria into the waste-to-energy state. Now is the time for us to look at alternative waste management approaches and emerging technologies that better align with circular economy principles.

Community consultation and the ability to build and retain a social licence are some of the other major issues faced by waste to energy. While many of these projects are in the early stages and have not been subject to formal community consultation processes yet, after seeing how the community of Hampton Park were treated during community consultation for their waste transfer station, I hold grave concerns. Consultation is only meaningful insofar as it has a direct influence on government decision-making. It cannot simply be a tick-box exercise. It must extend to all members of the community. We do not want to see our CALD communities and our working-class and vulnerable communities exploited by this government, and that is why our motion requires an investigation into the adequacy of community consultation. These waste-to-energy projects are not being proposed in Brighton or in Toorak. They are being proposed in suburbs that are used to being walked over and which have a long history of being the state’s dumping grounds.

In New South Wales, out of an abundance of caution for the risk to human health and the environment, incinerators are banned in metropolitan Sydney. In the ACT they were banned entirely after immense community backlash and significant concern over toxic pollution. This forces us to ask: why is waste to energy not good enough for them, but it is good enough for Victoria? If the government wants to know why these proposals so often suffer from a lack of social licence, a mirror could help in this situation, because many of the MPs from Labor’s own ranks have stood up publicly against their government’s plans for waste to energy. But all too often this opposition is only heard when the proposed facility is in their own backyard.

Despite introducing waste-to-energy legislation into Parliament back in 2022, Minister for Climate Action Lily D’Ambrosio has opposed a project near her northern Melbourne electorate and signed a petition by her Labor colleague Bronwyn Halfpenny to oppose a proposal in Wollert. With all this in mind, it is no surprise that the public are failing to buy into the idea that waste to energy is something they should embrace in their neighbourhood. Again we are forced to ask: why is waste to energy not good enough for them, but it is good enough for us?

At the end of the day the most important thing is stopping waste before it starts. The reality is we are continuing to produce mountains of waste, and until something changes it needs to be managed responsibly. An inquiry focused on the development and expansion of waste-to-energy infrastructure in Victoria will take the advice of experts and engage with the community to understand all the options. It is our hope that this inquiry will enable better outcomes for people and the planet and force the government to consider if this huge shift away from waste management policy is in the interests of all Victorians. To that end my colleague David Ettershank will be moving an amendment to this motion. We encourage all parties across the chamber to support this motion.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (14:27): I am pleased to rise to have a discussion on motion 1002 in Ms Payne’s name. I have been listening with interest, and this is a topic of great interest and concern to many people but also an opportunity for many regions in our state. I have been around long enough to have actually been on the Environment and Planning Committee’s inquiry into recycling and waste management back in 2020, noting that it was a very fulsome and thorough inquiry that canvassed a broad range of those issues about how Victoria meets the challenges of this waste, once manufactured, once created – and waste is an interesting term – and how this waste can be managed, recycled, reused, repurposed and potentially form other useful objects. I call it energy from waste – energy coming from the end product, the bottom end of the waste cycle – and it is where no other waste can be recycled. It is often called the red-bin waste: that which has ceased to have anything of use able to be removed from it.

I listened with interest to the Legalise Cannabis Party’s contribution, and I would like to endorse Ms Payne’s comments around my concerns about the cuts from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, as she raised. My concerns in relation to that of course are that this government has a tendency to cut services, to cut boots on the ground, out in the field – workers out in the region and workers out in the suburbs – rather than suits in the metropolitan CBD of Melbourne. That is my concern. Ms Payne also spoke about how we need, in her proposed inquiry, to have an inquiry about community consultation. Well, this very upper house inquiry committee, called the Environment and Planning Committee, is doing just that now. It has come from Mrs Tyrrell, and it is a multiparty inquiry, a report card – we are listening to people; we are listening to organisations, industry, all of the breadth of anyone who wants to reply – on how the government performs in terms of communication. It is a very important inquiry, and the report card is not looking good after one round of hearings. I have yet to read all the submissions, but I am sure they will prove that there is a level of clarity that the government needs to listen to on that. There is a community consultation inquiry proceeding right now.

In this previous inquiry we looked at some of the streams of waste: municipal waste; food organics and garden organics and the very important area about recycling our organic material; commercial and industry waste; construction waste; hazardous waste; agricultural waste – it looked at that; and e-waste as well. One of the key things that came out of this inquiry was there was a section on energy from waste. We looked at the circular economy, and we saw that there were examples in Europe. Where there is an advanced circular economy, energy-from-waste facilities were maximised or were used to great effect. I give you an example quoting figure 6.2. In Sweden 53 per cent of municipal waste that cannot be further recycled goes into energy-from-waste facilities and 47 per cent into landfill. I think the star is somewhere around that 53 per cent in Norway and Sweden et cetera.

What we have seen with this government so far – and it is now rightly, as Ms Payne said, five years into the government’s own Recycling Victoria strategy, the policy that has 80 per cent of landfill being diverted by 2030 – is it is failing this dismally. We have seen the Auditor-General come out and say that five years into this 10-year strategy we have got roughly 50-odd landfill sites across this state and they are going to be chockers, they are going to be full. The report found that waste diversion rates have stagnated at around 69 per cent, well below the interim target of 72 per cent by 2025. The government is not getting its head around its commitment. It is not achieving that diversion – and it is important to divert from landfill; there is no doubt about it. You have got methane emissions that are a concern, you have got grandfathering issues and you have just got the sheer volume of the waste that councils have to deal with, locals have to deal with, residents et cetera. and the landfill levy goes on.

I appreciate the comments about location, location, location in terms of energy-from-waste facilities. The really important things are where and how and having the best technology. It is important that places and families and residents at Hampton are not put under duress and that there is good communication and there is a good outcome for those communities. I will just finish this little section on the inquiry. There were recommendations, and recommendations 37, 38, 39 and 40 the government accepted. The government supported the recommendations that there needs to be a strong regulatory framework around the environment and public health outcomes from energy-from-waste technologies adopted in Victoria, including in relation to monitoring and reporting of air emissions where further clarity is needed et cetera. That is one. It also spoke about the long-term need to take into consideration capacities in local government. It also talked about our multiparty recommendation – and the Greens were a member on that committee – for best-use practice in technologies that minimise any impact on the environment and public health.

They are just a couple of examples of how this has been well canvassed. It is an important topic to canvas, there is no doubt about it. But one area in my electorate of Eastern Victoria is the Latrobe Valley, a place very dear to my heart where there have been incredible and ongoing challenges in terms of energy transition. The government is shutting down jobs and not building them up. I think Morwell at the moment has got somewhere around 12 per cent unemployment after the government promised such a lot at the last election.

Let us look at Opal. Opal sits out at Maryvale mill, and it has been an employer and a producer of white paper and recycled paper and packaging for over 80 years. They have had on their list, on their most rigorous plan, feasibility studies, business case approvals and requests to the EPA. They are now at the pointy end of this delivering thermal energy red bin waste, non-recyclable waste, and they are going to produce the concept – and it is quite well developed – of a 225-megawatt facility. And what do they use at the moment? They use gas. They use very expensive gas and electricity for production in their manufacturing. This is going to reduce their dependency on gas and provide that constant supply. It is also going to take the equivalent of 270,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases off emissions. We are going to reduce that from this facility, and it is going to have a diversion rate of 99 per cent. One per cent is going to be that aggregate at the bottom. They are going to remove the minerals and the metals, and that bottom residue is going to be incorporated into road base and used to strengthen that. This is also important because it is going to create jobs in an environment where we have not had jobs after having jobs closed down in the Latrobe Valley.

I understand the importance of making sure that these are in the right places and that there is great and rigorous oversight, but the Nationals and the Liberals will not be supporting this inquiry.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (14:37): I am pleased to make a contribution on this motion 1002 on waste to energy, and I thank my colleagues in the chamber from Legalise Cannabis Victoria for bringing it forward. Victoria is in the middle of one of the most important transitions of our time. We are making a shift from the take-make-waste model of consumption to a modern, thriving circular economy. This shift is about reducing what we send to landfill by reusing materials wherever possible and by building new industries that create jobs while protecting our environment. As part of this transition the Allan Labor government has been very clear: waste to energy has a role to play, but only within strict limits. We must make sure of strong protections for community health and the environment. That is why our Recycling Victoria policy and waste-to-energy framework sets out these principles. Waste-to-energy facilities must reduce waste to landfill. They must meet best-practice environmental protection standards while supporting community amenity and support waste avoidance and recycling, not undermine it.

I think we have come a very, very long way from the backyard incinerator. We all – well, perhaps we do not all remember; perhaps millennials do not remember. Even when I was younger, there were not very many backyard incinerators, but perhaps the elderly gentleman nearby had one. And yes, of course he would always be putting something plastic or wet in it, and then there would be smoke everywhere, all over people’s washing, and it would generally disrupt the amenity of the neighbourhood – but also, as we now know, disrupt the health status of many people who were asthmatics and had health issues. I think we have come a long way from the backyard incinerator when it comes to this sort of technology.

We know that avoiding the need to recycle is the most important, most effective action. It is like in the water industry: if we reduce the amount of water we need in the first place, that is the biggest environmental protection we can have and the cheapest for all of us. In relation to waste to energy therefore these facilities are required to operate under some of the most stringent environmental and health regulations in the world. The Circular Economy (Waste Reduction and Recycling) Act 2021 requires every facility processing waste to hold a licence, with clear limits set by government. These licences are not a green light to build, as we saw a few weeks ago. They are the first step in a long and rigorous process that includes detailed community consultation, scientific health assessments and independent approvals. Last year the government completed a regulatory impact statement to review Victoria’s overall cap on waste to energy. This is an important safeguard, because the government’s first priority remains: avoid waste, reuse where we can and recycle more. Waste to energy is the last step in that chain, a way to extract some value from material that cannot currently be recycled.

This is not about waste management; it is about jobs, economic growth and community benefit. Each waste-to-energy facility represents hundreds of millions of dollars of private sector investment, supporting local construction jobs and long-term operations. Earlier this year Recycling Victoria issued seven cap licences under the new framework. Together these projects could divert 2.35 million tonnes of non-recyclable waste from landfill each year. Each will need to meet every planning and environmental approval before construction. These include the project’s contribution to Victoria’s waste infrastructure, commercial viability, economic benefits, environmental standards, the ability to deliver reliable energy and of course community support.

I recently heard a radio talkback conversation – I think it was on ABC; I will not technically reference it – and it was interesting because a lot of people called in. It ranged from people who kind of thought that waste to energy was a bit like the backyard incinerator with the smoke coming over the fence. There were people ringing in, and one guy rang in who said he worked in a waste-to-energy facility and said how clean it was and how amazing it is. So I think we have had the full gamut of perceptions about what they actually mean. I have a bit of curiosity, and I think there may be some benefit in exploring those issues further for our community.

Victoria’s circular economy transformation is ongoing. Since 2020 our Recycling Victoria policy has been driving systemic change, and we are already seeing results. Victoria now has standardised four-stream household waste bins. For some odd reason Warrnambool, where I live, was one of the first to get their four bins. We have the orange bin and the purple bin, which we have dubbed the bin of shame because it is the glass bin and it is very loud. Everybody knows when the purple bin is emptied, and the louder it is the more assumptions the neighbours make about what is in there. I can tell you it is usually not pickle jars. Nearly 2 billion containers have been returned since launching the four-bin process, and that is underway as we go. Over 5.5 million tonnes of recycled materials have been used in Victoria’s Big Build, showing that recycled content can support world-class infrastructure projects. Our circular economy transition is estimated to boost Victoria’s economy by up to $6.7 billion.

I just want to talk about a project in my own electorate near Hamilton, where plastic farm waste is being received by this local business, who are called Sustainable Plastic Solutions. They have created a world-leading closed-loop circular economy. This is where baling twine, silage wrap and grain tarp are used that would have otherwise gone into the tip, so to speak. Other businesses put in orders for plastic pellets. Literally, in one end of the machine goes the baler twine and out the other end comes the specifically ordered plastic pellets for a business that has requested them to make something – that might be plastic chairs or whatever. It is absolutely fantastic because it gets rid of that landfill.

These initiatives are all part of a very broad sweep of activities that form part of our response to climate change – to mitigate climate change and adapt to climate change. They include not just our waste strategies but also energy transformation by getting rid of coal-fired fossil fuels and reducing the amount of plastics in our community. In July 2024 the company, Sustainable Plastic Solutions, were awarded a federal government grant of $4,421,704 to install recycling technology and infrastructure to recover and process an additional 8000 tonnes per annum of agricultural plastics. These initiatives not only reduce landfill but also create local jobs and investment, ensuring regional communities share directly in the opportunities of a circular economy. The Allan Labor government is well and truly committed to building a system that is sustainable, resilient and fair, ensuring Victoria remains at the forefront front of waste and recycling reform.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (14:47): I am glad to see this motion come before the house, and I thank Legalise Cannabis for bringing it. For years the Greens, including me, have stood alongside communities who are appalled at the dangerous, polluting waste incinerators this government wants to build in their backyards. As is too often the case, it is regional communities and outer suburban communities that are expected to put up with this mess. Labor wants us to believe that burning our rubbish is a good way to deal with it. The contribution we have just heard illustrated just how captured they are by this industry. The absurd comparison with old-fashioned backyard incinerators shows that a real level of misinformation has permeated many members of this government. The industry is out there with a whole lot of complete greenwashing, absurd material. If you speak to experts in science and in public health, they will paint a completely different picture about what even modern waste incinerators will do.

Incredibly, Labor even claims that waste incineration is a sensible part of a circular economy. Maybe that argument would have held water decades ago in Europe – although I question that – but they were ramping up their incineration facilities at that time. Now it is 2025 and European countries are closing down incinerators en masse. They are scrambling to get out of them because of the shocking health and environmental problems they have created, and yet here in Victoria we have just decided to start getting into the business. Labor is trying to sell incinerators as the perfect new solution to our problems. Burning rubbish is a highly emissions-intensive process, and that is even before you account for the never-ending procession of trucks required to transport the waste from homes to transfer stations to incinerators. The burning of waste materials, such as plastic and PVC, means that these are a type of fossil fuel plant. Do not buy the greenwashed claims; they are fossil fuel plants that fill the air with CO₂ as well as toxic pollutants like mercury, lead and dioxins, many of which have no safe exposure limits. It is as if this government were encouraging new coal-fired power stations to be built in Sunbury or Wollert, except that waste incinerators produce even more carbon emissions than coal.

What is more, numerous studies have shown a range of human health impacts related to exposure to the pollutants that are created by waste incineration. Despite the lofty technological claims of the corporations that stand to get super rich off the back of these greenwashed fossil fuel plants in disguise, you cannot make waste incineration safe. Toxics Free Australia notes from years of evidence in Europe that some of the most damaging pollutants are formed after gases leave the plant’s filters as they cool down and interact with the outside air, and incineration leaves behind mountains of toxic ash that create serious health risks for workers and surrounding communities.

If all this was not bad enough, this government’s commitment to waste incineration makes a mockery of their rhetoric around moving to a circular economy. Building huge rubbish-burning plants completely undermines the economic incentives to reduce waste and develop more sustainable alternative recycling markets. This is another reason why countries like Denmark are closing down their incinerators in favour of improving waste separation and recovery systems, especially for food and organics. The economics of these massive incinerators means that councils get locked into decades-long contracts to feed the hungry machines with minimum amounts of waste to make the plants commercially viable, and Labor keeps increasing those minimum amounts. The statewide cap started at 1 million tonnes of waste per annum. Then it increased very quickly to 2 million and then again most recently to 2.5 million tonnes. There are whispers it will go up even more.

These caps do not even account for the category of exempt waste, which includes hazardous waste and certain types of biomass that can be burnt without counting against an incinerator’s cap licence. Every minimum cap increase represents more carbon emissions from burning and transporting waste, more threats to human and environmental health, less incentive to channel our resources into genuine circular economy initiatives and more financial risk for councils, which can be punished if they do not generate the waste they are contractually obliged to provide.

It is no surprise, then, that communities like Lara in my electorate have been staunchly opposed to the incinerators planned for their backyards. I celebrated alongside my very relieved, although still very wary, community as we learned that the Lara incinerator was not granted a licence under the cap last week. It is wonderful to see that community pressure paid off in Lara, including through getting a few Labor MPs and ministers to speak out against the proposal in their electorate, but Labor needs to realise that every proposed incinerator is in someone’s backyard.

The Greens and I are keen for this inquiry to go ahead, but it is important for it to be done right. For an issue so rife with greenwashing and spin, it will be crucial for the committee to not only hear from industry and vested interests – which will no doubt be the case, because I am sure the government will be sure to get their industry mates to make those submissions and turn up at the inquiry hearings – but from communities and independent experts.

It is also important to make sure that we understand and clarify the term ‘waste to energy’. This is a vague term that also encompasses a range of safer, more effective non-combustion technologies like anaerobic digestion, which Ms Payne talked about, and landfill gas extraction. What the Greens and I are most worried about are waste incinerators, and it will be important for this inquiry to clearly define its terms so that the dangers of incinerators are not permitted to hide behind the rhetorical trick of referring to these different technologies together under the benign blanket term ‘waste to energy’.

There is no denying that Victoria has a waste problem. In 2018 Australians were forced to reckon with the fact that for decades, while we had been thinking we were doing the right thing by diligently filling up our yellow-lidded recycling bins, we had just been exporting our waste problem to other countries. Finally they decided to say no more as they did not want our rubbish piling up on their shores. When they did that, it was a chance for us to figure out our waste problem. It should have been an opportunity to invest in genuine waste reduction and circular economy initiatives. Seven years on, Victoria has barely budged. We have done a couple of good things: container deposit scheme – great; there is some good stuff happening in food organics. But there is so far to go. Too much waste is still being produced, our landfills are running out of space and far too little waste is being recycled, but burning it is not the answer.

Pull something, anything, out of your rubbish bin tonight, and I guarantee there is something better that we can do with it than burn it. Australia’s National Toxics Network engaged an independent consultant to investigate Australia’s residual waste management options and found that in areas with high landfill gas capture – and in 2022 Victoria had the highest in the nation – incineration was the single worst outcome in terms of cost to air quality, health and climate. I repeat: incineration was the single worst outcome. So if the work of this inquiry is genuine, and I really hope it will be, it will be an important way to investigate alternative waste management processes, like better collection, separation and processing, not to mention reducing our waste in the first place, which is the absolute key. Incineration is not the answer, and it is time that Victoria admitted it.

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:56): I too rise today to speak on motion 1002: that this house require the Economy and Infrastructure Committee to inquire into, consider and report by August 2026 on the development and expansion of waste-to-energy infrastructure in Victoria. First and foremost I want to say that I have been fighting very, very hard with my local community. In fact it is a joy to see some of the residents that have come out from the south-east today, because this is an issue that is literally very close to home for them. It is so close to their homes in fact that in some cases some people have had to endure a rubbish dump that is 54 metres from their homes, and the proposed waste transfer facility is so close to their homes that it is a genuine health risk.

I do not think the concept of turning waste into energy is something that anybody could deny is bad. The idea of us being able to take our waste and our rubbish and somehow do something positive with it, that can actually help our society and our community to be more responsible, is something that I think we would all benefit from and that I think we would all support in principle. The issue here of course with these waste transfer facilities, in particular in my area, is their location and the lack of community consultation. The issue for the people of the south-east is that you cannot have nine councils’ waste going past our kindergartens, our childcare centres, our schools, our community centres, our aged care facilities and right past the residents to allow everybody to be exposed not only to the toxins but also to the possibility of combustion in A-double trucks that could go soaring down these roads. I am so proud of my community – just everyday people who are just trying to hold down their jobs and pay for their rent and their mortgages and look after their families – that they have come out en masse and said, ‘We say no. Not in our backyard.’

It really interesting, and it is also quite hypocritical too, that this government can say, ‘We are so in favour of waste-to-energy facilities.’ It is very hypocritical that the Minister for Energy and Resources publicly opposed a waste-to-energy facility in Wollert, which is neighbouring her electorate, despite masterminding the plans, and meanwhile the Deputy Prime Minister also opposed one in Lara, which he represents in federal Parliament. So these facilities were no good for their local people, and they are no good for my constituents either. The issue I know is that there are a number of MPs, and I am not one of them, that have gone overseas and visited these waste transfer facilities or places that have been able to convert rubbish into energy. I have not seen them, I have not visited them, but I have heard about this. I am sure that there is a lot of positive stuff that can be taken away from actually going through and looking at this as a whole. But this is big business, this is billion-dollar business, and there is no price that you can pay for people’s health.

Whilst I will say that the Liberal-Nationals are not supporting this particular motion, we are not against the concept of turning waste into energy, because we think the idea and the concept of that is good, so we are not against waste transfer facilities per se. The location is incredibly key, and the reason for that is to do with health. Look, it would be great if we could wave a magic wand and find a really healthy way to get rid of our rubbish and also make good use of it, and that is, I think, quite key. But to have an inquiry just before we head into an election period, when we have a responsibility as an opposition to provide an alternative government to the one that people currently have, is just bad timing.

I want to talk about some of the issues that people have in terms of contamination. I know that there are a few actually around the Paris area, and as has been noted, some of these places are having trouble now trying to shut them down. Toxins are affecting millions and millions of people in residential areas, and it just simply cannot happen here in Hampton Park. I will continue to stand with the people, because let me tell you what some of these toxins can actually do. Toxins from waste transfer facilities, which are concentrated and processed, can negatively impact human health through air and water contamination. In the area of Hampton Park, we have a number of underground springs. Potential health effects include respiratory issues, irritation of the eyes and skin, headaches and nausea. Chronic exposures are linked to more severe outcomes like various cancers and reproductive and developmental problems. And when I say reproductive and developmental problems, we know that severe toxins can cause severe birth defects.

I am the mother of four kids, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to be exposed to toxins that actually can cause severe birth defects. It would be simply irresponsible of any government to do that to any family, to any parent. It is simply unacceptable in the modern era. It is not progress, it is the opposite to progress. It is actually taking us back, and we are regressing when we make decisions that are not wise. Chronic exposures can also cause hormonal disruptions, immune system weakening, liver damage and neurological issues. What is more is that the waste can actually be disease carrying and cause other issues as well.

The area of waste we know is complex. Nobody wants to live near a place that is covered with rubbish and have those toxins affecting them in various ways. Nobody wants to be near a facility that could actually be causing harm to their health and to their family’s health. I do think that it is important to recognise the importance of location for these facilities, and I think that across Victoria we have a problem because quite often they have been selecting locations, until an MP jumps up and says, ‘Not in my backyard’, which I will say again is literally the case for the people of Hampton Park – you can literally see across their backyard where this facility is; it really is behind their fence – and it is seen as inappropriate, unfair and unacceptable.

On issues like this it is important to remember that it is important to keep fighting. I applaud all the people that have come out of their homes today to actually fight for this issue and to speak up on this issue and to recognise that this is an important issue. But at the same time we need to look at this in a way that is responsible, and inquiries that are going to be taking us right up to just before we actually have to be dismissed from the chamber and can no longer be here to actually campaign are not fair on anybody. It is all right for the Greens and the Legalise Cannabis party, they team up with the Labor government the whole time and vote with them. But if we are going to offer the Victorian people a genuine opposition and a genuine opportunity for another government, it is simply bad timing. It is not fair. And we are not against the concept of turning rubbish into energy.

David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (15:04): Can I thank Mrs Hermans for the most compelling argument for why we should have an inquiry. So I was a little discombobulated with the ending there, but I feel almost as though I am redundant as a result.

Anyway, putting that aside, I rise to speak in support of motion 1002, moved by my colleague Ms Payne. At this point in time I would like to move amendments 1 to 8 standing in my name, and I ask that they be distributed, please. I move:

1. In paragraph (1)(a), omit ‘proximity of WTE projects to’ and replace it with ‘impact of WTE projects on’.

2. After paragraph (1)(b), insert the following new paragraph:

‘(c) the regulatory framework to establish and manage WTE facilities;’.

3. In paragraph (2), omit ‘economic, social, and environmental consequences’ and replace it with ‘the impact’.

4. Omit paragraph (2)(a).

5. In paragraph (2)(c), omit ‘toxic’.

6. In paragraph (3), omit ‘better’ and replace it with ‘also’.

7. In paragraph (3), after ‘circular economy plan’ insert ‘, including Victoria’s landfill management, capacity and strategy’.

8. In paragraph (4), omit ‘and social licensing’.

My preference is that the amendments be put as a single question when we get to that.

Just to speak briefly to the amendments, these are a product of discussion with a range of stakeholders. The major changes are the addition after paragraph (1)(b) to include in the terms of reference the regulatory framework to establish and manage waste-to-energy facilities, and the rest are largely grammatical in nature. I commend those to the house.

This debate could not be more timely given the news that Recycling Victoria has just approved seven more licences for waste-to-energy facilities in Victoria. This means that soon Victoria will potentially have 11 waste-to-energy incinerators, and that is not only more than in any one state, it is more than all of the states in Australia combined, by a comfortable margin. The unseemly haste to install these incinerators is perplexing to me given the government’s commitment to transitioning to renewable energy, because while these facilities do produce energy, they also produce exactly the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions per energy unit as coal-fired power. Yet waste-to-energy is being sold to Victorians by the corporations that have got their money backing it as some form of benign technology.

If you read the propaganda coming from those companies awarded the licences to support these giant incinerators, you would think that it is a boon for the environment. It says ‘Decreasing waste generation’ and ‘Increasing investment in recycling and resource recovery’ and that they are necessary steps in our transition to a circular economy and that they are lowering costs and improving efficiencies while reducing environmental impacts. Quite simply, it is all just gaslighting and spin. These incinerators are locking the state into eternal waste generation, with caps now of 2.3 million tonnes of waste being incinerated annually. We will all have to produce a lot more waste to feed these beasts, and we will need to import more waste from other states.

Let us look at the maths, for example, in my electorate of Western Metropolitan Region. HiQ has won the contract to service the Hume catchment, and that catchment has an annual cap of 740,000 tonnes of garbage headed for their so-called Eco-Hub incinerator. The problem is that if we take all of the landfill in Hume, it totals a mere 14,000 tonnes a year. So where are the additional 726,000 tonnes coming from? These things are perpetual operations; they run 24/7. They cannot just be turned on and off on low-rubbish days.

And how is burning rubbish increasing our investment in recycling and resource recovery? One great way of increasing our investment in recycling and resource recovery is to increase our investment in recycling and resource recovery, which we are not doing. This was highlighted by the Victorian Auditor-General’s report Recycling Resources from Waste. The report concluded that the government was only on track to deliver on one of its circular economy goals, and that is enabling household access to an organics waste service by 2030 – good on them for that. The other economy goals have stalled, including diversion from landfill.

It is a pity that the government appears to be putting its eggs into the waste-to-energy basket. The 2020 Legislative Council Environment and Planning Committee inquiry into waste management and recycling in Victoria heard from organisations working to create a circular economy. They just needed a bit of help in scaling up their operations. Why didn’t the government fund some of those instead of saying, ‘It’s all too hard. Let’s just burn it’?

How is this technology a necessary step in transitioning the state into a circular economy if we are not investing in a circular economy? Do we believe that waste-to-energy companies will somehow create a circular economy and then just quietly recede into obsolescence? If waste-to-energy is an interim measure until Victoria miraculously reaches a circular economy nirvana, we will find when that moment apparently comes that those companies have long-term contracts locked in for their continued operation. That has been the experience in countries abroad, and there is no reason why we would not be facing the same thing now. What damage to the environment, to our health and to the liveability of our state will be wrought before these incinerators are decommissioned? We have heard a lot about the safety of these cutting-edge, world-leading waste-to-energy facilities. Why, there is an incinerator right in the middle of London – they must be safe! If they are so safe, let us build them in Brighton. Or let us build them in Malvern, shall we?

In the local context, apart from the greenhouse gases and toxic pollutants generated by these incinerators, we need to consider the huge carbon footprint produced in just getting the waste to the facilities. Again, let us go back to my electorate, where there will be, to feed the beast at the Sunbury Eco-Hub, an extra 700 trucks a week clogging up local roads and releasing a staggering amount of noxious vehicle emissions in their own right. And those will be 24/7. That is how these incinerators work. In a further bit of planning mismanagement, no-one seems to have noticed that HiQ, the Sunbury operator, will be immediately adjoining proposed housing and a future town centre, according to the Hume council integrated growth area plans. But this is perhaps not so surprising. There appears to be a blind faith in the market to address our waste problem without much oversight. For example, there are no minimum environmental standards set for tenderers. This laissez-faire approach is deeply troubling. Communities do not want them in their suburbs, and who can blame them?

Certainly, affected government members are alive to the safety and environmental concerns. Community opposition to the Wollert incinerator proposal has been openly supported by its local members. Likewise, state and federal members have been very vocal in opposing the Lara incinerator. Then there is this, and I invite members to guess the author of this quote:

… so many people think they can use Western Sydney as a dumping ground, whether it was the proposal a few years ago to dump radioactive waste at Kemps Creek in my electorate or now these two disgusting proposals for incinerators at Eastern Creek. They claim they are clean energy. They are not clean energy. It is burning garbage. It is literally a dumpster fire …

If you guessed that was Chris Bowen, now the federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy, you get a gold star and a Mars Bar – come and see Ms Payne after the debate. It was great to see him so proudly defending the western suburbs, and if you change ‘western Sydney’ to ‘western Melbourne’, ‘Eastern Creek’ to ‘Sunbury’ and ‘nuclear waste’ to ‘PFAS’, the similarities are striking. So why are our western suburbs colleagues not doing the same? Perhaps they have not been paying attention, otherwise they might have noticed what a bad actor HiQ really is. Only last year the EPA laid a series of charges on them, including improper disposal of asbestos waste, failure to implement a rehabilitation plan, failure to establish a risk-based monitoring program et cetera – I will not go on; there are a lot of them. They received a small fine and a rap over the knuckles, and in the spirit of forgive and forget they got a licence to operate a waste-to-energy facility in Sunbury, processing almost three-quarters of a million tonnes of waste a year. Some crazy idealists might think that flagrant breaches of our environmental regulations might put a kibosh on a licence to burn that garbage, but no. Welcome to the brave new world of privatised garbage.

There may well be a role for incineration in dealing with waste, but it is not the silver bullet we are being sold, and that is why we need an inquiry. We need to reassess the largely unqualified embrace of this technology. These facilities are expensive, carbon intensive and lock us into continual production of waste. I urge members to support our motion, as amended.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:14): I also rise today to speak on motion 1002, which has been put forward to us by my colleague in the south-east Ms Payne. I acknowledge the deep community interest that has come to this topic as well. It is one that I spoke about previously in this place when, just under three months ago – in fact one day short of three months ago – we debated a petition regarding the Hampton Park waste transfer proposal by Veolia. I will take the opportunity briefly to reaffirm my remarks made at that point that it is my clear view that the EPA, in ruling against that particular proposal, made the right decision, and it was the right body to make that decision. That matter is still before VCAT, and we are all hoping for the very best outcome. But what is certainly clear is that, irrespective, the EPA has sent a very strong message about the health risks of this particular proposal, It is one that I, as a local member, and members from across the south-east are deeply, deeply concerned about.

When it comes to the broader issue of waste to energy, this is something of a wicked problem. It is not quite so simple as saying that we can just burn everything, but it is also not so simple as saying that we can not do anything at all, because for too much waste, the alternative is landfill. Landfill contributes more CO₂ than waste to energy. It is deeply environmentally destructive and there are many other concerns. The thing that troubles me as well is that according to reports as late as this last week we are seeing that Victoria’s landfill systems are approaching capacity at a rate far quicker than had been forecast. It is certainly true that something needs to be done. There are obviously many important aspects of the circular economy, such as various recycling initiatives. The container deposit scheme is one recent example. But it is very much the case that we cannot solve all of those things without looking at other solutions, and waste to energy has been identified as one of those solutions.

That being said, there are genuine questions that have been raised in the community that particularly relate to these operations, whether it be a transfer site or whether it be an actual waste-to-energy incinerator being placed within certain distances of people’s homes. That is, to my mind, a very valid concern and one that we should be looking at. It is why I am pleased to be standing today in support of this motion, because this is something that we should be looking at. We should be having a conversation about how we do this. It should not be a simple one-sided conversation. I do think it should be a broader conversation about how we manage these problems. That is why I welcome the amendments put forward by Mr Ettershank, and I affirm that the government will be supporting those amendments, because in my view those amendments allow us to take that bigger picture look.

His amendment 7 adds, in paragraph (3), a specific reference for the inquiry to look into matters including Victoria’s landfill management capacity and strategy. This needs to be an important part of the conversation. I will be very glad to see that amendment move forward so that may take place in this inquiry as well, should it pass this Council today.

I have been listening to the debate in between other things as much as I can today, and one thing that struck me about the Hampton Park issue is the very real need for the community to be heard. In many areas that did not happen properly. Again, I will limit my remarks about that particular applicant somewhat, given that the case is still before VCAT, but I do hold grave concerns about the way in which some community members in particular were treated by the applicant in that case. We have a clear indication from the EPA of its view on this particular issue. Whilst there may well be a role for waste to energy to play, it is clear – we have the community saying and we have the EPA saying it –that Hampton Park is not the most appropriate location for a waste transfer site. That is why I think that this conversation is so important, because we need to be bringing the community in more. We need to be having this genuine conversation about how we do fix this wicked problem and how we do substantially and meaningfully address our waste challenges without adversely impacting communities.

We can talk about different models. For example, I know Ms Payne has referenced – I am not sure about today but possibly in some of her public statements – different situations in some other states around the distances that houses need to be from these sites. I think that is a very sensible thing for us to be looking at, and that is why I am very excited to be able to speak in favour of this motion today. We all in this place are on very many committees, and I am a participating member on this committee, as I believe you might be as well, Acting President Broad. As a participating member, I may not get to be one of the committee members taking that deep look in; I may well be depending on other circumstances. But I know for those members who are on that committee, it will be a very illuminating inquiry indeed. But most importantly, it will give the community more of a say. It will address many of the things that Mrs Hermans in her contribution raised around various health risks. It is an opportunity for that to be discussed, and I have to say I am quite disappointed to hear that members opposite in the Liberal Party have indicated that they will not be supporting this motion, because I do think it is something that we should be talking about. I do think that if you are serious about speaking up on this issue, if you are serious about taking a proper look at Hampton Park of course but waste to energy as a whole, you would support this inquiry.

There have been ongoing conversations across the chamber, as there is with every motion in this place, and I do want to acknowledge Mr Ettershank and Ms Payne for their interest in working on amendments which can drive support. I do not know if those conversations were put forward by those opposite, but it seems that from their contributions, perhaps not. It is timely. It is appropriate, and it certainly strikes me that the Economy and Infrastructure Committee is the right committee to take a look at this issue. It is time that we keep those voices and that we elevate those voices so that they can be heard. I say to all members: irrespective of the party you are in, if you are serious about this issue, you should support this motion.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:22): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to this motion brought to the chamber by Ms Payne, motion 1002. This is to establish an inquiry for the Economy and Infrastructure Committee to inquire into and report on the development expansion of waste-to-energy infrastructure in Victoria. The waste-to-energy story is an interesting one. There is clearly a significant role for waste to energy in our processes. There is also a very significant context for waste-to-energy processes to be considered. Thirdly, there is the question of siting and processes and how this is proceeded with.

I want to say up front that the Liberals and Nationals have no intrinsic opposition to waste to energy per se. However, we also recognise that there is a context in which this operates, and I could talk at some length – I could probably put the chamber to sleep with some of the discussion if I so chose – about a recent trip to Europe. As a guest of the Danish government I was able to look at renewable energy projects across Denmark. I also attended the world biogas conference in Birmingham and further looked at a number of locations elsewhere in Europe –- particular plants associated with farms, larger ones, a whole series of different facilities. What is clear to me is that there is a very significant context here, and we need to carefully work through our waste stream. I was fortunate enough to be on the old inquiry on this, and we had some significant concerns about the government’s direction at the time. We produced a minority report. We pointed out that the government had not worked through some of the cost implications properly, and one of the things we said is there had to be an appropriate regulatory impact statement, which there never was.

The government is moving headlong down one particular direction, and much of it has not been thought through and costed properly. Mrs McArthur has talked at length about this from time to time, about the costs that are going to be incurred by councils and thereby communities over the period ahead. We are actually at a position where I think the government’s own behaviour and own processes have not really thrown up the best outcomes in a lot of these areas. There is a shortage of information, and I understand why the –

Lee Tarlamis: So it’s the government’s fault you are voting against the motion? Is that what you are saying?

David DAVIS: No, I am talking about the context. I am talking about the context of the whole system here, and I think that is important to understand. The point I would make –

Tom McIntosh interjected.

David DAVIS: I could talk, as I said, for quite a while about some of these renewable gas issues. I might say something about that since I have been given the opportunity to do so. One of the things that I would say about renewable gas in this state is that the state government has been very slow to move on it. The state government has not understood that you can actually build a proper circular economy outcome with renewable gas. There is a tension with waste to energy, depending on how that is applied. There is no doubt a secure stream for waste to energy in part of the waste stream. The question is how large that is, where it is, how the streams are separated and how we get best value out of some of these particular streams.

I was persuaded by some of the things I saw in Denmark and other parts of Europe as I looked at a number of these facilities, and there are literally hundreds of them across Europe. I went, for example, to a renewable gas facility owned by Prodeval, a French company active in Italy, active in Spain and active in France and elsewhere in Europe and also overseas. They have a very good model where they can put together small, medium and large facilities quickly and effectively, taking the renewable stock – it could be agricultural waste, it could be food waste, it could be waste from wastewater facilities, it could be a whole stream of different wastes mixed and matched together – and put it into the anaerobic digestion. I heard Dr Mansfield talk about anaerobic digestion and some of the opportunities that we face ahead in the future with that, where we can actually use anaerobic digestion to deliver significant renewable gas options. That is just one set of points I am making there in terms of the broader and newer context.

The relevant cooperative research centre actually put out a paper in May this year, and I urge people to read it. It looks at the renewable energy and renewable gas context. It draws out some of the places I saw in Europe – in Denmark, in Britain, in Italy and so forth – and lays out some of what they would regard as best practice with renewable energy of that type. I guess what I am saying here is there is a broad context. There is a government set of processes which I think have failed Victorians in many of our city areas, where plants have been positioned with non-transparent processes and real concerns. Some of my colleagues have raised these in this chamber today and elsewhere. The EPA is a body that we all understand has not really been up to the mark and up to scratch – I will leave it at that. I am not a massive fan of the EPA and its capacity to make the best decisions. I do not think it is a body that has done us well as a regulatory group. We have a number of challenges and contexts.

I note also the amendments that have been circulated, which as I understand it have been requested by the government. They replace a number of clauses, remove a number of clauses, make some substantive changes in my mind to the motion and provide I think some useful points that we note on this particular issue.

We are in a context where we do not oppose waste to energy per se. We are worried about the application of the process to some particular locations in metropolitan Melbourne. My colleagues have talked about those. I do not need to go back over those.

Tom McIntosh interjected.

David DAVIS: You would like me to, would you? I could talk about Sunbury and the huge volume that is proposed for Sunbury. I could talk about Hampton Park and the lack of process down there by the EPA and the agreement where the EPA might have got to a right position in the end but it might not have got there by a good mechanism. I could go on in great detail, item by item, if people would want me to do that.

Tom McIntosh interjected.

Jeff Bourman: On a point of order, Acting President, could Mr McIntosh interject from his own place, please?

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): I uphold the point of order. Mr McIntosh will return to his seat.

David DAVIS: We have some concerns about the time capacity of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee. I in no way diminish the importance of the topic that is being brought forward. I understand Ms Payne has brought it forward for a very sensible set of reasons, to try and get what I would call a more holistic or more comprehensive look at this field so that we can look at it in a constructive way. I understand the logic of what has been proposed and I understand the amendments that are being proposed. The Liberals and the Nationals obviously have a significant recognition in particular of the renewable gas options.

Let me just say a bit more about renewable gas. Victoria has to date missed the boat on renewable gas. We have missed the boat. I will just pick an example – I could pick a dozen of these, but one will do: Melbourne Water and the major treatment plant down at Carrum, the Eastern Treatment Plant. A massive volume of effluent from the east of Melbourne, as people know, collects down there.

Tom McIntosh: On a point of order, Acting President, I know Mr Davis’s effluent contribution is very important to him, but I do not think it is relevant to the motion.

David DAVIS: On the point of order, Acting President, it is deeply relevant to the motion.

Tom McIntosh: It is not. We are here to discuss waste to energy.

David DAVIS: We are talking about how to utilise waste streams. At the moment the biomethane at the Eastern Treatment Plant is largely flared. It is just flared. What a shocking greenhouse outcome, to flare that.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (15:32): It is always a delight to get up and speak in support of more works to develop and expand waste-to-energy infrastructure in Victoria. Here is the thing: I support this motion because I view it as a really valuable opportunity. It will give us an opportunity to examine the progress Victoria has made, consider community views and ensure that our future policy settings align with the broader goals of our circular economy and climate action strategies. I have got to say that waste to energy is complex and it is sometimes a contentious subject, but putting it under the careful scrutiny of a parliamentary committee I believe will give us the opportunity to provide assurances to communities, to industry and to households that Victorians are taking a thoughtful, balanced and evidence-based approach.

Victoria does not come to this debate from a standing start. We have already had a robust framework for waste to energy established through Recycling Victoria policy and the waste-to-energy framework and our framework. It is clear waste-to-energy facilities will only be supported where they reduce waste to landfill, meet best practice environmental and human health standards, support community amenity and complement rather than undermine avoidance and recycling. Facilities really must comply with some strict environment and human health regulations, and these rules require international best practice and pollution controls. Absolutely nothing less will be accepted in Victoria. This inquiry will not weaken or replace that framework; rather, it will give Parliament a chance to assess how well it is working, whether our policies remain fit for purpose and what lessons we can draw from early projects. The Victorian government has put in place a clear multilayer system of regulation. The EPA, planning authorities and Recycling Victoria all really play an important role in ensuring facilities meet best practice standards.

You may be familiar with the fact that the Circular Economy (Waste Reduction and Recycling) Act 2021 requires all thermal waste-to-energy facilities to be licensed, with licences specifying a permitted amount of waste within a statewide cap. Facilities must secure multiple approvals – planning approvals, EPA development and operating licences and cap licences from Recycling Victoria – before they can even begin construction. This rigorous process ensures that communities are consulted, environmental impacts are carefully considered and only projects that deliver real value proceed.

The committee inquiry will provide an additional layer of transparency. It will enable the Parliament to look at these regulatory systems as a whole, hear from experts and engage directly with communities. It is not about opening the floodgates for incineration. It really is, I would say, about a balance. That is why we have placed this statewide cap on waste-to-energy facilities. After careful modelling and a regulatory impact statement, the cap was set at 2.5 million tonnes per annum. I would just say that this inquiry will give us a chance to test this cap in a parliamentary setting, hear what stakeholders think with respect to what is the right level and examine how it has been implemented.

The issues of community trust cannot be overstated. Waste-to-energy facilities will not succeed without a social licence to operate. This inquiry, if it is to go ahead following the vote on the motion today, can deepen community confidence even further and allow people to see that all sides of politics are taking this concern seriously, that we are listening and that every detail of this policy is being scrutinised. I am not a member of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee. I do understand that there are other speakers that may want to make short contributions as members of that committee, so if that is okay, I might leave my remarks there and get back to my coughing.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (15:37): I am very pleased to stand and support this motion. Being a member of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee, I will be delighted to be able to look into this issue in more detail. We have had a number of topics in our committee that have touched on themes in the energy space. Indeed we will be looking at electric vehicles next, so we can follow that by looking at how waste is managed, look at the interaction with local communities to ensure local communities are engaged and there is consultation with communities on these projects and just look at the waste cycle and how we are recycling recyclable product and our organic waste.

I have the good fortune in Eastern Victoria to have the Dutson Downs facilities of Gippsland Water, which is an incredible facility where they are recycling organic material to be reused as compost. There is a hell of a lot of work being done on a closed loop on so much product. I think this inquiry will give us a really good opportunity to look at the many components on not only the waste side but the energy side and the actions that we take to mitigate and reduce climate change. I will leave my remarks there as we have run out of time, but I look forward to the inquiry.

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:38): Firstly, I want to thank all of the community groups that have either appeared here today or who have been active in this space. I have learned a lot throughout this process because it has been my community who have come to me with their concerns. They have raised these concerns with me and highlighted why it is so important that we in this place get it right. I mean, we do have to consider what kind of world we want to leave for future generations, and that has to be front of mind in any decisions we make in this place, because decisions we make in this place are long lasting and have impacts. That is especially the case when it comes to impacts that could be impacting our communities around their health and their wellbeing. That is what our communities have raised with us. They are concerned, they are worried, about what waste to energy and the broader infrastructure that facilitates it mean for our communities more broadly.

I also want to thank everybody for making contributions today. There were so many varied and wide contributions in this space. It is important to note that I think we are all overwhelmingly on the same page when we are talking about avoiding waste and wanting to move towards an economy where we reuse, we recycle and we avoid creating the waste initially. However, what we are currently seeing in how we are operating is that is not actually happening, and this is why we are calling for the inquiry.

The facilities that are being proposed are being proposed for residential areas in working-class communities. Why is this continuing to happen? We need to have a look at that. Are the current requirements around where these operators can apply to plan and have a permit fit for purpose? Some of my colleagues also talked about something which is dear to my heart, the Hampton Park waste transfer station, and the EPA decision there should be upheld. I do appreciate that many of my colleagues in this place have raised that issue and looked at the fact that those that are following the guidelines are operating appropriately, but when it comes to operators that continue to challenge the EPA’s decisions, continue to litigate any sort of issues that surround the current facilities they have got, there is no doubt that there is going to be ongoing community concern and a lack of trust in these operators as to how they are going to operate these sorts of facilities.

When we have 11 applications in Victoria, we also need to question that. An inquiry process allows that community consultation, which is something that most people raised in their contributions – the importance of community consultation – but it also allows the experts to come in and educate us. I appreciate that we had an inquiry similar to this only a few years ago, but what was born out of that was the circular economy policy, and we are not meeting those targets. We are five years through a circular economy policy, and we are producing and creating more waste and using more plastic than ever before.

I do feel that we can get to a place where we could see the circular economy become more robust, and waste to energy may have a part to play in that. But we also need to make sure that the regulators have the teeth to hold these multinational corporations to account on their emissions targets and on their requirements of how they operate in communities and that they do the right thing by our communities, because the way we are seeing them behave currently is they are just litigating every challenge they receive.

Again, I want to thank all of the community for being active in this space. We have learned a lot throughout this process. I look forward to the inquiry going forward, and I hope that everyone will support the motion going forward.

Amendments agreed to.

Council divided on amended motion:

Ayes (18): Ryan Batchelor, Katherine Copsey, Enver Erdogan, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Anasina Gray-Barberio, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Gayle Tierney, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell

Noes (10): Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Wendy Lovell, Joe McCracken

Amended motion agreed to.