Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When it comes to Western Sydney, the things we need seem to be a struggle to get and the stuff we never asked us for gets thrust upon us quickly. This is certainly the case for a proposal by Cleanaway to build an energy-from-waste incinerator at Eastern Creek. A similar facility was proposed by Dial A Dump at Eastern Creek just last year, which saw more than 1,000 objections lodged with the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission and, similarly, a New South Wales upper house inquiry into that proposed energy-from-waste facility received nearly 1,000 public submissions against the project and only two in favour. Nothing has changed. It is just a different company now and they are proposing the same old thing: using Western Sydney as a dumping ground. The potential health impacts of such a proposal have not been adequately identified or addressed. It is a huge facility that's proposed to be located within a kilometre of homes, schools and sporting facilities. According to figures obtained by 7 News, 150 trucks will be used every single day to deliver waste to this facility. It will place increasing pressure on the already resource-starved infrastructure of Western Sydney. It is a facility that is not the solution to the waste challenges we face as a country. We are not Sydney's dumping ground and we certainly should not see this facility proceed.