Labor to take out the trash

AN INQUIRY will be launched into Queensland’s growing waste problems in a bid to help the Palaszczuk Government decide how to stop NSW and others using the state as a dumping ground.

Just who will head up the waste investigation is yet to be decided, but Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said that they would be given three months to look into the state’s dumping woes and determine how they can be fixed.

It follows a roundtable meeting with waste industry representatives on Monday.

“We need to better understand the actions of those who haul waste several hundred kilometres to Queensland, what responses we can make and whether national action is required,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“Not only is interstate waste haulage unnecessary, it can be unsafe. We also need to question the potential cost to Queensland taxpayers and the environment,” she said.

The Government has ruled out reinstating the waste levy scrapped by the former Newman government this term, but has left the door open to bringing it back should Labor retain office at the looming election.

Ms Palaszczuk said the investigation would consider what currently incentivised the haulage of waste from other states into Queensland and how to prevent it.

“I want to send a clear message to interstate waste generators and companies that Queensland is not a free-forall,” she said.

The decision to hold an investigation drew fire from the Opposition. “Yet another report? Given Annastacia Palaszczuk has known about it since 2010, this is a new low in this do-nothing Labor government,” an LNP spokesman said.