Wednesday, 18 March 2026

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (17:49): I move:

That the petition be taken into consideration.

I want to begin by acknowledging the people who brought this debate before us. We have now in this place in this term of Parliament debated four petitions about various waste-to-energy infrastructure. This is only because the community has been loud and relentless in their fight to stop these burning trash towers. Thank you to the thousands and thousands of people who signed this petition, many of whom are here watching in the gallery today and worked tirelessly to get out there and engage with their communities on this important issue. I do want to say sorry that you have all been forced to do the work this government should have done by scrutinising and demanding better. Community after community is being forced to fight simply to stop enormous industrial trash fires being built in their backyards. The message to this government could not be clearer: Victorians do not want these waste incinerators. Frankly, who could blame them? These facilities burn hundreds and thousands of tonnes of rubbish every year. They create air pollution, toxic emissions, noise, truck traffic, contamination risks to land and water and potential long-term health consequences that communities will be forced to live with for decades. Many of the substances these facilities would burn – such as mercury, lead and dioxins – have no safe level of exposure. Those are just the local impacts.

Globally, waste-to-energy, in particular in the form of incineration, is one of the most expensive forms of energy generation. Very little of the energy embedded in things like plastic products is recovered by burning them. Recycling products saves far more energy overall. Waste incinerators function much like fossil fuel power stations, except that burning waste can actually release more carbon dioxide per megawatt hour of energy produced than burning coal. In the middle of a climate emergency, this government have found something that can be more emissions intensive than coal, and they are backing it in with unbridled enthusiasm. This is completely reckless public policy. Communities throughout Victoria are rightfully upset, and all this government has to say to them is ‘Burn, baby, burn.’ But the unfortunate reality for this government is that we simply cannot burn our way out of climate change.

We know what waste incinerators do to our environment and human health, and yet this government are ready to load up the trucks – except, of course, when it is in their own electorates. The incinerator development in Lara seemed to lose its steam when the Deputy Prime Minister and the state member for Lara wrote to the then Victorian planning minister opposing the development. They opposed it because, to quote the member for Lara, ‘It lacked any social licence.’ Of course, although there are many other proposals outside their electorates that do not have social licence either, they voice no such opposition to those. The member for Lara is correct, though: there is no social licence. These ring-of-fire projects also directly contradict this government’s own policy on waste reduction and achieving a circular economy. There seems to be no plan to reduce waste, let alone improve recycling practices to facilitate the ‘circular’ in ‘circular economy’. If we allow these incinerators to be built in Victoria, we will have a circular economy in name only.

But perhaps the most perverse aspect of this policy is that the incinerators need to be fed 24/7. This means we will be buckled into a system that depends on endless extraction, production, consumption and incineration. Local councils will be locked into contracts, forcing them to feed the beasts that are poisoning their communities. While we need to be reducing waste, these facilities depend on us producing more of it. That is not environmental policy and that is not a spoke in the circular economy, that is a policy dumpster fire.

Waste reduction has been neglected by governments for decades now. Instead of believing better things are possible – which they are – this government are burning the evidence of their utter failure and clumsily trying to greenwash it by calling it waste to energy. But communities are seeing through it. If this government are serious about protecting public health, tackling the climate crisis and building a real circular economy, they need to place a moratorium on waste incineration projects. This is a choice: we can either invest in waste reduction or build a future where we are forced to burn it. That choice seems pretty simple to me, and the broader Victorian community has spoken up to say the same. We need a moratorium on waste incineration projects now.

 Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (17:54): The government will not oppose this motion. I will also, like Dr Mansfield, acknowledge everyone who is here and everyone who is watching, who has signed on to this petition. My name is Tom, for those of you who do not know me. I am incredibly passionate – for anyone who has had to sit in this chamber and listen to me – about decarbonising our economy and looking after local environments. I assure you that members of the government are listening and are passionate about these things too. That is why we have world-leading, jurisdictional, emission reduction targets. It is why we are working on electric vehicles getting pollution out of our streets and recycling programs like the container deposit scheme. I am sorry to make this is too much about me, but I am also secretary of the Parliamentary Friends of Landcare. I am very passionate about Landcare and its local plantings. There are many, many things we have to do. I can see some members in the gallery rolling their eyes at me because I know that is a little bit about me, but I am passionate about that. And there are members of the government who have passionately listened to communities. Dr Mansfield mentioned Lara. I know that Ella George has worked incredibly hard for her community of Lara. Josh Bull has spoken numerous times in Parliament, is repetitive in the caucus and works hard with communities. What I want to assure you is that government members and the government are listening to community, hence Lara is not proceeding.

It might be the right time to talk about the fact that anyone who wants to develop and operate a waste-to-energy facility in Victoria must obtain all required regulatory approvals before they can commence construction and operation. Waste-to-energy projects are governed by multiple pieces of legislation in Victoria, including but not limited to the Environment Protection Act 2017, the Planning and Environment Act 1987, the Environment Effects Act 1978 and the Circular Economy (Waste Reduction and Recycling) Act 2021. When seeking planning approval a proponent must demonstrate that a waste-to-energy facility is consistent with relevant policies and controls relating to environment, economic and social impacts in line with the Victoria Planning Provisions and the Planning and Environment Act. So there is a process that companies must go through. My understanding is that in Sunbury there is not even an application on the table for consideration, and the application in Lara was knocked back.

The reason why I raise the work that the Labor government has done over a decade, whether it is decarbonisation, which affects our entire global environment or local environment, is that faced with the likes of Tony Abbott in Canberra, Lily D’Ambrosio and other members of this government have stood up and made very, very difficult decisions when communities did not want to hear the word, talking about action on climate change, about renewable energy and about circular economies, and we have gone about making those decisions. With due respect to the Greens, they are not a party of government, and we know that the Liberals and the Nationals opposite, if they have half a chance, will laugh in the face of it, whether it is consumer protections, whether it is emission reductions, whatever you name. In the debates we have in here regularly, whether it is around trying to move gas out of households, whether it is, as I said before, on EVs, whether it is on energy generation, they laugh in the face of it.

The main thing I would like to get across in this contribution is there are processes that must be followed, and as we have seen, the facility in Lara is not progressing. There are members of the government that are that are very, very strongly advocating within the government, and in Sunbury there is not an application on the table. Thank you for your time. Thank you all for being here. I will leave my contribution there.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:58): Petitions are one of the very important ways that the voices of Victorians can make their way into this house. By virtue of the many petitions that we have had this year, I think every Wednesday, when they hit a trigger – over 2000 signatures or 10,000 electronically – then there is 30 minutes of debate. I appreciate all people who are passionate enough to put their stamp on and sign the petition, and for that reason the Liberals and Nationals do not oppose petition debates, and indeed we always participate in them.

I think this one is a very interesting one, because across Victoria communities are certainly confronted with twin challenges. If we look at the populations naturally rising in Victoria, we have increasing waste streams and we also have an energy system that is evolving and certainly a transforming energy landscape. With any recycling it is important to use it in the hierarchy of reduce, reuse and recycle, and provide as much opportunity as we can to recycle. I think that is where government focus needs to be. We have talked about recycling in other committees, putting a great focus on that, from organic waste to all sorts of industrial recycling that can occur. But one of the things that cannot occur often is red bin recycling, when there cannot be any further recycling of that red bin waste, the non-recyclable household waste. I think that is the point that different parties have different positions on. I want to be agnostic in terms of the utilisation of that red bin waste. It goes to landfill normally. We know that, again, our landfills, our tips, are getting larger and larger and larger, and they are emitting, over time, carbon dioxide and methane as well. This is an issue and this is a problem.

But one of the things that I want to talk about is that energy from waste is not necessarily entirely evil, as some would have it, but it is about the location. There are many evolved highly organised circular economies in Europe. Indeed there are certain energy-from-waste facilities in the major city of Paris in France. They can be highly evolved, but it is the question of where they should go. I want to pick up some points around consultation. There are people that live in Sunbury and Bulla where they firmly believe – and I respect that belief – that they have not been consulted and that it is not appropriate to put an energy-from-waste facility there. Energy from waste should never be imposed on a community where there is not that social licence, so I put that on record very strongly. I think that we have seen this, we have seen the absence, and we understand this deep frustration that community has in terms of that lack of social licence. There are going to be many trucks. It is in a heavily populated township where there are houses. This is not the place for an energy-from-waste facility.

But on the flip side, I will speak to something in my electorate. I heard Mr McIntosh – he covers off the Eastern Victoria electorate as well as me; I am Melina Bath – and what he did not mention was a facility that Australian Paper is trying to get up. It is called the energy-from-waste facility, and it uses a lot of gas. For over 80 years we have had Australian Paper producing white paper and now cardboard paper – very important in this modern world. It is producing paper, and it uses gas that produces CO₂ emissions. Now, these are state-of-the-art facilities. It has been working on this for 10 years, and it has a very high social licence in the valley. It is out of town. It is off and away from major roads. There is a train track that runs there that can carry that red bin waste that cannot be recycled any further, and the facility would reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 540,000 tonnes every year, equivalent to 50,000 cars off Victorian roads. It would divert up to 650,000 tonnes of waste annually and create more than 1000 jobs. That is important to me. It is in my electorate. There needs to be balance in this, and I commend this petition for this debate to be had.

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (18:03): I rise to speak in support of this petition that has been tabled by Dr Mansfield. Victoria is running out of landfill. The sensible thing would be to increase recycling. Look at the ACT, which has a resource recovery target of 90 per cent and is investing in local recycling. Recycling here in Victoria has flatlined. In 2020 the Victorian government set a target to divert 80 per cent of waste from landfill by 2030. According to the Auditor-General just recently, six years on literally no progress has been made – nada, zip. Worse still, instead of investing in recycling initiatives, the government is banking our recycling funds. The sustainability trust fund grew from $76 million in 2022 to $545 million in 2025. That money is being used to offset debt, not expand recycling. What is the government doing? It is basically contracting multinationals to torch our waste – ‘Burn, baby, burn,’ as Dr Mansfield says.

Wouldn’t it be great if government actually did the job of governing rather than outsourcing problems to the private market? But no, relying on market mechanisms is their go-to. It saves them the trouble of developing policies that instead improve the lives of Victorians. I have accused this government of many things, but this policy is so mind-bogglingly dumb that I am almost lost for words – and as those who know me know, that is a very rare thing. For example, they have not investigated the relative technologies that could be applied to the incineration process – ‘Let the market decide.’ They have not mandated that the incinerators be built near train tracks. Instead, they are happy for thousands of trucks to traverse our suburbs, with B-doubles daily rolling past childcare centres, schools and shopping centres – ‘Let the market decide.’ They have not set any minimum standards for the new incinerators – ‘Let the market decide.’ Victorians are angry that the Allan government wants to dot incinerators around Melbourne’s outer suburbs. It is a ring of fire.

To put this in some perspective, the Allan government has issued 11 waste-to-energy licences, with only five incinerators planned for the entire rest of Australia. We are, frankly, disgusted that the government will not release documents on the waste-to-energy tender process. This may be about rubbish, but it is time for the government to come clean. The ACT has banned incinerators. The New South Wales government has banned incinerators in metro Sydney, allowing them only in four outlying regions. But in Melbourne’s suburbs, these billion-dollar incinerators will burn rubbish 24 hours a day, seven days a week for decades to come. There is obviously currently an inquiry coming up to look into this proposal, and I think it is fair to say that the communities affected by these proposals demand an undertaking from this government that there will be no processing of development applications and operating licences until this inquiry is complete.

Victoria’s incinerators are not proposed for well-heeled suburbs like Brighton or Toorak. Instead, it is the suburbs of working people that are in the firing line. Take my region – Sunbury, the town forced to take the West Gate Tunnel’s 1.5 million cubic metres of soil, is now proposed to burn 750,000 tonnes of waste; Wollert near Epping, 760,000 tonnes; Laverton, 280,000 tonnes; Dandenong, 100,000 tonnes; and Maryvale, 650,000 tonnes. I am delighted that Sunbury MP Josh Bull has joined the ranks of traumatised government MPs who have realised what a disaster this proposal will be. Incinerators are cheap and convenient ways for the government to privatise waste disposal and handball the problem to multinationals from the Middle East, Asia and Europe. How sad is it that a Labor government believes the suburbs overwhelmingly populated by working-class people are the natural home for rubbish fires. Shame on this government. I commend the motion and the petition to the chamber.

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (18:08): I thank my fellow members for their contributions to this debate. Although I think there were, again, some wideranging topics explored through this debate, the essential ask of these petitioners is that we have a moratorium on waste incinerators, and I think that is a very reasonable ask. Mr Ettershank in particular highlighted significant concerns with these facilities, and it is astounding that the government continues to push ahead with this agenda despite mountains of evidence and despite mountains of community opposition. I do not accept the proposition put forward by Mr McIntosh that we should accept this because Labor are slightly better on climate than the Liberal Party. I mean, that is absolutely ridiculous. This is Labor policy. You cannot blame this on the opposition over there. Labor policy currently is to burn thousands and thousands of tonnes of rubbish in these incinerators. They have on multiple occasions lifted the cap on the amount of waste that can be burnt in incinerators to allow more of these private companies to set up in communities that do not want them there because they are rightly concerned for their futures. They do not want these facilities there, not because they do not want to find a sustainable solution to rubbish; it is because it is not a sustainable solution to managing our rubbish, because it is something that is going to harm our climate and it is going to harm our health, and ultimately it is actually undermining our efforts on waste reduction and recycling in this state. Once again I thank the petitioners. Keep at it. We have obviously got a long way to go to shift this government, but member by member we will get there.

Motion agreed to.