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The Moorabool News – 14 December, 2021 Page 5
Hard rubbish collection back on agenda A hard rubbish collection service for Moorabool will be investigated for a second time – but not every Councillor thinks another report is necessary.
The previous report found less than 30 per cent of Moorabool residents would take up a new hard rubbish collection service.
A motion, asking for a new report into the service, was put forward by Cr Rod Ward at Council’s Ordinary Meeting on Wednesday 1 December. It was seconded by Cr Dudzik, but Cr Tatchell voiced his dissent, prompting a debate. “The request is to ask the Chief Executive Officer to prepare a report on the provision of hard waste collection to Moorabool Shire properties. Significantly, the notice of motion does request consideration of residents’ support for such a service, so any proposed service will need the residents’ support,” Cr Ward explained. “It also takes into consideration whether in some areas residents may or may not want such a service. It’s asked for benchmarking against other councils, potential advantages of service and disadvantages. Cr Ward said he is deeply concerned about the increase of illegal dumping of rubbish throughout the Shire. “We’re privileged to live in one of the most beautiful councils in Victoria, but spending a lot of time on the road, I’m growing more and more concerned, and more and more aware of illegally dumped rubbish.” In support of the motion, Cr Dudzik said hard waste collection was desired by many Moorabool residents. “Hard waste collection is something that is desired by a large portion of the community. This motion is requesting a report, it’s not saying that we are definitely going ahead with anything,” she said. “We did do a report a number of years ago, but circumstances may have changed.” Cr Dudzik said there is no harm in updating that information and having updated figures presented to Council for consideration.
- Cr Paul Tatchell Cr Tatchell argued that commissioning another report on hard waste collection, rather than amending the original, was a waste of Council’s and ratepayers’ resources. “My problem with all of this is that whenever a report is produced, it’s a moving feast. Moving feasts should be amended if they need to come back to Council,” he said. “We’ve spent a hell of a lot of money and a hell of a lot of time, and the ratepayers pay for this. To continually request duplicate reports years later, when they’ve already been done and just need to be brought up to date, to me seems a total waste of ratepayers’ funds. “The second issue of course is that, why would we have duplicate reports that are going to be reliant on each other, when these problems can be addressed quite simply by putting in a motion for the things that are missing out of the original report?” Cr Tatchell also stated that the previous report found less than 30 per cent of Moorabool residents would take up a new hard rubbish collection service. Crs Ward, Dudzik, Edwards and Munari voted in favour of the motion, and Crs Tatchell and Berry against.
STATE AUDIT SATISFIED WITH STATUS QUO An audit into council waste management services has found that they are efficient and cost-effective, and made no suggestions to change the system. The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (VAGO) tabled the review in State Parliament on Thursday 2 December, with the review examining four councils and four waste management agencies. The stated purpose of the review was to “determine whether local councils’ waste management services provide value for money”, and it was determined that the services do provide value. “Nothing has come to our attention to indicate that councils’ waste management services are not providing value for money. This is due to current policy settings as well as market and capacity constraints around kerbside waste collection, which makes up almost 80 per cent of council waste spending,” the report reads. “We did not make any recommendations in this review, as nothing came to our attention to indicate that councils’ major waste management services are not providing value for money given market and capacity constraints, and policy settings.” In 2019-20, Victoria’s 79 local councils spent more than $706 million on delivering waste management services, the report added. Of that, 78.8 per cent of this was spent on kerbside waste, 15.6 per cent on litter maintenance (including street sweepings and public place litter collections), and 5.6 per cent was spent on hard waste collection. Of the 79 Victorian councils, 43 provided hard waste collection services in 2019-20, with 31 of these being metropolitan councils. In terms of landfill capacity, the report stated the current approved capacity “is forecast to be sufficient for Melbourne’s needs only to 2026”. “Without state action to increase disposal capacity, prices may increase for councils to dispose waste.”
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