MINISTER CHALLENGED OVER MAV BUDGET ASSESSMENT
The Member for Western Victoria Region, Bev McArthur used Question Time to ask the Minister for Local Government if he accepted the Municipal Association of Victoria’s (MAV) assessment of the 2019 Victorian Budget.
The MAV believes:
that it does not deliver the level of investment urgently needed to strengthen our fragile recycling system; and
that despite $511 million in collected landfill levies sitting in the Sustainability Fund at 30 June 2018, the Budget’s commitment of just $34.9 million to tackle the recycling crisis over three years is grossly inadequate given the scale of investment needed.
Mrs McArthur, used a supplementary question to the Minister referencing the $200m collected each year from Councils for landfill levies which asked whether the Minister supported the MAV policy position that “much more of the State’s landfill levy income must be reinvested into waste and resource recovery – rather than it propping up the Victorian government’s budget.”
As a former local government councillor, Mrs McArthur said she was very familiar with the very vexed issue of ratepayer contribution to landfill levies with nothing to see in return.
Bev McArthur said “the Corangamite Shire contributed approximately $1m per year in levies and saw little return on their investment. Meanwhile we have all seen part of the $511m Sustainability Fund spent on solar plans for trams in Melbourne.”
Bev McArthur said “as usual, much of this government’s policy emanates from inside the tram tracks of inner Melbourne.”
13 June 2019