Time to end recycling rip off

Daniel Andrews’ bin tax must be immediately suspended until Victoria’s recycling crisis is resolved.

It is immoral for the Andrews Labor Government to be making millions of dollars from a recycling crisis of its own making.

Currently, Victorian councils are charged a municipal and industrial landfill levy for all waste sent to landfill. This levy is passed directly on to households through council rates.

However, since the collapse of recycling in Victoria, many councils have no option but to send recyclable material to landfill – incurring higher levies.

The Labor Government is literally making money out of its own policy failure.

Last year the Victorian Auditor-General found that the funds from this levy were …

not always used for their intended purposes, and that activities that receive fund monies are not achieving the legislative objectives of better waste management, reduced greenhouse gases or effective adaptations to climate change.

Victorians pay these bin taxes to support a recycling system to protect the environment and reduce waste, but they aren’t getting that service now.

It is wrong for banks to charge a fee for a service they don’t provide and it is just as wrong for Daniel Andrews to do the same.

While around $240 million is expected to be collected in landfill levies this year, Labor is only spending around $40 million on waste and recycling; a profit of around $4 million each and every week.

Victorian households shouldn’t have to pay the price for Labor’s incompetence.

Daniel Andrews must immediately suspend his bin tax until he’s fixed his recycling mess.

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