Cabonne Shire Council Waste Recycling
Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes: I direct my question without notice to the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, who so enjoys them. Is the Minister aware that Cabonne Shire Council in New South Wales withdrew in June this year from a joint recycling initiative with Orange City Council, a project that was forecast to increase recycling rates from its current 20 per cent to 60 per cent? Is the Minister aware that Cabonne Shire Council wants to keep dumping for another 35 years across its six existing landfills with no commitments to improve recycling? In particular, is the Minister aware that it will cost ratepayers $1 million to withdraw from the joint project? Given that this strategy is out of line with the New South Wales targets for recycling, can the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water and its Minister step in to ensure a more environmentally sustainable outcome and to facilitate a public debate so that the community knows what its representatives stand for?
The Hon. John Robertson: The waste and environment levy is working in New South Wales. It makes waste avoidance and recycling cheaper than land filling and provides a strong economic incentive to reduce waste being generated and to promote resource recovery. The levy has been in place for a number of years in Sydney, the Hunter, Illawarra and the Central Coast. In these areas the levy will rise over seven years to about $120 per tonne in today’s dollars by 2015-16.
The levy has also been extended to the Blue Mountains, Wollondilly and 19 councils in the north east of the State from 1 July 2009. This extension was implemented given the growing population in those areas. The levy in those new areas is $10 per tonne and will increase by $10 each year, plus inflation adjustments, to reach $70 per tonne in today’s dollars by 2015-16. The levy increases have also enabled the Government to enhance and extend its largest environmental funding program—the City and Country Environmental Restoration Program—for a further five years.
This program has already supported development of new marine parks and expanded council waste and sustainability services and delivered $105 million to buy back water for the environment. In Sydney, the levy has meant that waste disposal across the metropolitan area has decreased by 3 per cent between 2000 and 2007-08 despite population and income increases.
Increasing and expanding the levy will help to improve landfill performance, stimulate greater resource recovery and provide funding for the State’s longer-term environmental priorities. The waste levy has been implemented to deliver better environmental outcomes. If my memory serves me correctly, I have a meeting with the mayor of Orange City Council some time next week. I am sure that the opportunity will be taken to raise that issue and I will discuss it with the mayor then.