With the Victorian Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Innovation, Gavin Jennings, recently announcing a price hike for landfill levies in metropolitan Victoria, the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) has expressed a growing frustration at the number of State Government policy costs and levies being imposed on Local Government.
From 1 July the landfill levies in metropolitan Victoria will jump from $7 per tonne to $30 per tonne, and will hit $53.50 per tonne by 2014–2015.
The State Government has committed to minimising the impact on households and will invest the $53.7 million raised by the levy over the next five years to help businesses, councils, households and communities address waste and its environmental impacts and assist in the transition to the higher levy rates.
“Victoria already recycles six million tonnes of waste each year, but with an increase in the landfill levy, Environment Protection Authority modelling indicates an extra 1.2 million tonnes per year by the 2014–2015 financial year will be diverted away from landfill,” Minister Jennings said.
“For a long time, the cost of sending valuable materials to landfill has been too low. Increasing the levy paid on each tonne of waste helps provide an incentive to avoid landfill and stimulate the development of recycling businesses, new technologies and jobs.”
But MAV President Councillor Bill McArthur said councils are increasingly being used as a State collection agency and face the brunt of community backlash for the hidden costs of complying with State policy, regulations and levies.
“We are yet to do a detailed analysis on the financial effects of the landfill levy increase, but in some municipalities it will equal a rate rise of more than one per cent for communities this year,” Councillor McArthur said. “In isolation this may not seem like much, but it is a massive hit on ratepayers when added to the cumulative impacts of over regulation and the onerous State compliance costs imposed on councils.”
Councillor McArthur said Local Government is committed to meeting the Victorian Government’s ‘Towards Zero Waste’ vision, which aims to achieve better resource recovery and waste diversion targets, but councils were finding the lack of transparency increasingly unacceptable as ratepayers unwittingly contributed to a growing number of State programs and regulations through their rates bill.
“It is simply not sustainable to load up Local Government with layer upon layer of regulations and levies,” Councillor McArthur said. “The Victorian Government must produce a full Regulatory Impact Statement on the landfill levy to make it absolutely transparent to councils and communities where the dollars are going. This should be a mandatory requirement for all State policies that impact on Local Government.”
