Thursday, 17 October 2024

Waste and recycling management

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:17): (1206) My adjournment is for the Minister for Energy and Resources. Under the minister Victoria’s energy policy has become authoritarian – gas bans, wind farms and transmission lines imposed on communities and property owners in a very autocratic way and in a very unsatisfactory way but in a way that the government says is the only way. There is no compromise on matters as important as these. Recently the minister announced a $10 million investment in the waste to energy fund. The minister proudly promotes this fund, encouraging industries to transform organic waste into sustainable energy. When just such a renewable project was proposed for Wollert, it sailed through the Minister for Planning, who decided the project was so good it did not even need an environment effects statement. This project would power over 60,000 homes and create 800 jobs. It is not small scale, it is precisely within the government’s strategy, and while there were some local objections, like the transmission lines in the Western District, these renewable projects are really much too important for nimbyism.

So far, so good. This is textbook stuff. This is the minister getting things done. But imagine my confusion when Ms D’Ambrosio, out of the blue, launched a parliamentary petition against the waste-to-energy project in Wollert, a suburb that resides within her own electorate. Yes indeed, the minister has a petition up against herself. Her advocacy against herself includes the following:

Together … we’re creating a new parliamentary Petition against the proposal …

Her fellow petitioners say:

… in the future, it will be hushed and silenced, and most won’t know about it.

… let’s stop this monster before the application is approved.

So questions arise: will the minister listen to herself or will she keep to her convictions and support the incinerator she wants approved but does not want approved? And why is it acceptable for communities in the Western District to have to accept renewable infrastructure with no right of objection but not when it is in the energy minister’s own electorate? I will be clear: I do not support this project personally. My community certainly do not. But there seems to be an appalling inconsistency. The action I seek from the minister is an explanation of why she supports the waste to energy fund but opposes the Wollert waste-to-energy project in her own backyard. Does she stand by her co-petitioners’ statements that the project is a monster and that it will be hushed up? If the project proceeds, does that make her position either as a local member or as a minister untenable, or if the project does not proceed, does that make her position as the local member or as the minister untenable?

The PRESIDENT: I will just remind members that if you ask a lot of actions and questions, ministers might pick one. But I am pretty sure you understand that anyway.