Tuesday, 15 October 2019

 Ms WOOLDRIDGE (Eastern Metropolitan) (18:09): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, and the action I seek is that the minister commit to Victorians that the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxes raised by this government via the Sustainability Fund be used to ensure that there is a viable and long-term sustainable waste and recycling strategy and to ensure that Victorians’ recycling is not sent to landfill in the future.

I recently contacted a number of members of the Nillumbik community, informing them that the recycling crisis meant their recycling was going to landfill and inviting them to provide feedback as to their concerns surrounding this. In response I was absolutely inundated with residents expressing outrage that this government was sitting on its hands as recycling was discarded in landfill. The overwhelming emphatic response was that the government should use the money that was collected through the bin tax to fix the problem and fix it for good.

Nillumbik council has negotiated with SKM for their recycling to stop being diverted to landfill as of last week, utilising the facility in Laverton North for processing. The council intends to work with the new owners of SKM to ensure a new contract is put in place to ensure proper disposal of their recyclable material. Unfortunately, though, in the longer term and broadly, this minister has ignored the recycling crisis until the last minute and continued to collect the bin tax without delivering residents the corresponding basic service—sending material to landfill that belongs in the recycling. There has been a fortune collected by this government, and it has been used to prop up their budget rather than for its intended purpose. This government’s waste and recycling policy has been a shambles, and this needs to be fixed.