I advise the House that council lawyers have indicated the energy from waste incineration proposal for Eastern Creek has finally been defeated. In 2014 The Next Generation [TNG] by DADI Group first proposed a facility that would incinerate 1.1 million tonnes of residual waste. The group of companies that grew out of the Dial A Dump empire, which was a skip bin operator with many infractions from environmental breaches, expanded to purchase a massive pit in Eastern Creek to continue its skip bin dumping of rubbish. The proprietors somehow stumbled across energy from waste incinerator technology, used extensively in Europe and Japan, and thought it was a good idea to have it here. The company went from skip bin collector and rubbish dumper to becoming one of the world's largest operators of a highly technical, environmentally challenging incineration process. What could go wrong with such a transformation?
In 2017 in my then mayoral role and accompanied by council officer Vanessa Parkes, I met with several members of the Legislative Council, including the Hon. Penny Sharpe, the Hon. John Graham, Mr Paul Green and the Hon Matthew Mason-Cox, to discuss the need to have a public inquiry into waste management, particularly in relation to energy from waste technology as the planning and environmental standards were out of date. The inquiry's terms of reference were drawn up in 2017 and the inquiry tabled its report on 28 March 2018. The former Government responded to the recommendations on 17 September 2018. I note that recommendation 20 of the committee stated:
That, subject to the current assessment process being conducted by the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, the NSW Government not approve the energy from waste facility proposed by The Next Generation at Eastern Creek.
The Minister at the time, Gabrielle Upton, MP, noted the recommendation and stated on 19 July 2018 that the Independent Planning Commission refused development consent for the project. A further five years has passed and the appeal process, plus changes in environmental regulations, have resulted in the project finally being defeated, in a great win for local residents. Unfortunately, due to the lack of appropriate regulations and laws, plus the bloody-mindedness of the proprietors with deep financial pockets, this resulted in several court cases being launched and continued unnecessarily, creating stress in the community.
I was elected to this place on 14 October 2017 and by 12 April 2018 I delivered the second reading speech to my private member's bill, the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Moratorium and Restrictions on Recovering Energy from Waste) Bill 2018. Unfortunately, the bill was voted down by the Liberal‑Nationals Government at the time. The Government did face some internal opposition to their do-nothing approach and I thank the then member for Mulgoa, and now member for the renamed electorate of Badgerys Creek, Tanya Davies, for her tenacity in lobbying her colleagues. On many occasions we approached together the various Ministers responsible for the regulations and laws for the incinerator waste processing plant.
The Government finally listened and announced a new regulation, the Protection of the Environment Operations (General) Amendment (Thermal Energy from Waste) Regulation 2022. This restricted the possibility of incineration of waste to just four precincts: West Lithgow Precinct, Parkes Activation Precinct, Richmond Valley Regional Jobs Precinct and Southern Goulburn-Mulwaree Precinct. I understand that many of those precincts are fighting against proposed incineration plants. I congratulate Michael Pilbrow, Ursula Stephens and many others in the area who are standing against the proposal in Goulburn. I welcome branches of the Country Women's Association adopting resolutions to advocate for the newly elected New South Wales Government to rescind the decision to establish waste-to-energy incinerators, and instead immediately introduce technology and waste reduction programs that use methods that minimise greenhouse gas emissions in the Richmond Valley.
I thank the community in the Blacktown City area for their staunch outspokenness against the proposal. Over the years many community meetings were held, with large numbers of people in attendance. Petitions were prepared, Government Ministers were written to and quality submissions were presented during the various development application assessment processes. I particularly mention Kerrie Bradbury, who, as a local mum and a community volunteer at the football club and school P&C, was an outspoken critic of the project, despite getting legal threats from the proponents. Many other people were involved, including Maya Uluc, Colin Bosworth, Leah Llaga, Alicia Schloeffel, Kim Vernon and Martin O'Reilly. I thank my parliamentary colleagues the member for Mount Druitt and the member for Prospect for their support, and also our Federal parliamentary colleagues the member for McMahon and the member for Chifley, who fought hard against the proposal. I also thank Councillor Carol Israel from Blacktown Council and council officers Glennys James and many others. I thank everyone for their participation.
