Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

Our community continues to fight plans to build a massive waste incinerator in Matraville that will impact all of Sydney's eastern suburbs. The New South Wales Liberal government recently released the state government's Energy from Waste Infrastructure Plan. The plan aims to ban waste incinerators in the Sydney basin, but it does allow the New South Wales government to grant exemptions to replace certain fuels to power industrial and manufacturing processes on site. Opal paper and SUEZ are seeking such an exemption from the New South Wales government as part of a terrible idea to build the eastern suburbs incinerator.

Any exemption will allow consideration of their proposal for the construction of a huge incinerator right next to residential housing on the Opal site at Matraville. The towering vent stack will be built literally 130 metres from homes in our community and operate seven days a week, discharging air pollutants across Sydney's eastern suburbs. I am strongly opposed to this proposal and will continue to fight it on behalf of our community.

The New South Wales Liberal government must not allow an exemption to the ban on incinerators in the Sydney basin. That's why I've written to the New South Wales planning minister to demand that he reject the Opal and SUEZ request for an exemption. The New South Wales Liberal government should not be allowing big companies to ride roughshod over the health and welfare of our community. Now is the time to put a stop once and for all to the eastern suburbs incinerator.

See this speech in context