Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, and the action I seek is that the minister encourage Darebin council to seek an alternative recycling processor. For the people in my electorate of Northcote recycling is a deep part of our ethos. My community was mortified to learn that Darebin council have been sending their recycling to landfill after the collapse of SKM Recycling. While kerbside recycling is a responsibility of councils, the Andrews Labor government has acted decisively to get councils out of the situation they have found themselves in. The government is delivering immediate financial relief to affected councils and incentives for them to seek alternative options to landfill. Over the last five years the Andrews government has made a record $141 million investment in the recycling sector to improve how we deal with waste. As recently as July, with a grant from government, Australian Paper Recovery opened its brand-new facility. In June the government invested in a trial of recycled plastic railway sleepers across Metro Trains Melbourne and V/Line services. We helped Advanced Circular Polymers open their doors at a brand-new facility to process 70 000 tonnes of plastic each year, and of course we have moved to ban single-use plastic bags and banned e-waste from going into rubbish bins. Waste is a complex issue, but we are not afraid of rolling up our sleeves and getting on with it. We are working on a major overhaul of kerbside collection; including a circular economy policy, improving the quality of recycling, reducing waste and working towards banning the export of recyclable material. My electorate is covered by two councils. North of Heidelberg Road is Darebin and south of it is Yarra. I have seen two very different approaches to waste. Recently Yarra has commenced a trial of four household bins to improve the amount of material saved from landfill, a trial that the mayor tells me is having very good outcomes so far. Sadly for my constituents in Darebin, we have seen something more akin to what they have become used to. Instead of using the fast-tracked approval they were provided with by the Minister for Local Government to enter into a new contract with another processor; instead of putting an end to recyclable material going into landfill, the Greens-controlled City of Darebin started a petition. That is right, a petition. Once again they chose to put ideology ahead of our community. Minister, as you know, outcomes are achieved with real solutions and hard work, not petitions. Residents are tired of the game playing and posturing; they just want their recycling to be recycled. I look forward to seeing genuine effort from council to seek a recycling contract. Minister, if you can assist with this, my community would be most grateful. In the meantime the Andrews government will get on with doing what we can to get those yellow bins rolling in the right direction again.
