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

Our community says no to the eastern suburbs incinerator. We say no to plans to build a towering vent stack just 130 metres from people's home in Matraville. We say no to an incinerator operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, discharging air pollutants across Sydney's eastern suburbs.

The New South Wales Liberal government recently released their Energy from waste infrastructure plan. This 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 onsite. One of Sydney's biggest waste disposal companies, in a proposal to burn their rubbish at Matraville, is seeking such an exemption. An exemption will allow consideration of the proposal by SUEZ, with Opal, for the construction of a huge incinerator right next door to residential housing and to schools.

In 2019 SUEZ teamed up Opal paper, formerly Orora, on Botany Road and lodged a proposal with the New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment to build their incinerator. Their plan is to burn at least 165,000 tonnes of waste a year at the Matraville paper mill—waste trucked in from Western Sydney tips—to create energy to power their mill. The proposal is classified as 'state significant', meaning it's been taken out of the hands of Randwick City Council and will be determined by the New South Wales state government. The Liberal government must not allow an exemption to the ban on incinerators in the Sydney Basin.

In releasing the infrastructure plan in September, the government highlighted the need to provide certainty for communities and industry. The plan makes clear where new thermal waste-to-energy facilities can and cannot proceed. The plan makes clear that a key principle should be 'to adhere to the precautionary principle where there is a greater risk of harm to human health due to proximity to high population areas' and 'in areas where there are regular exceedances to air quality standards from existing sources'. Matraville and the nearby Botany Bay area are already among the most polluted areas of Australia's capital cities, according to data from the National Pollutant Inventory.

The former New South Wales energy minister, now the Treasurer, Matt Keane, was right when he said that any concerns of local communities should be respected and that incinerators should be 'kept away from high-density residential areas'. I completely agree with the Treasurer, and that is why his government must not grant an exemption to Opal and SUEZ to allow them to apply to have the development application assessed by the New South Wales government. Our community has had enough of the pollution in the area. They must say no to the eastern suburbs incinerator. (Time expired)

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