Ratepayers to Prop-up State Budget

In a move that has shocked City of South Perth Council, the Lower House passed a Bill late last night that will increase the State Government’s landfill levy by 300 per cent.

At their Ordinary Meeting last night, City of South Perth Councillors were very concerned that the State would propose such a massive increase in the levy and then divert funds to activities other than waste management.

Speculating that the increase is another revenue stream for the Department of Environment and Conservation, Mayor James Best, said the City takes issue with how the State intends to spend the $30M collected from the increased fees:

“This move should and is going to be strongly opposed by Local Governments across the state.

“This is a huge imposition on ratepayers at this time, and the City is still of the opinion that this is a poorly constructed budget prop for the DEC. The levy is simply a tax on Local Government and ratepayers, with the revenue going into state coffers as an alternative to the DEC making the required three per cent efficiency cuts.

“This action creates a nasty precedent and paves the way for further increases and even additional taxes on ratepayers.

“There has never been such an excessive increase in the 11 year history of the landfill levy.

Jumping from $7 per tonne, as of 1 January 2010, ratepayers will be sugged with a $28 per tonne charge for the Waste Management Levy.

“This move is very worrying and calls into question the department’s financial efficiency and is counter-productive to sustainability initiatives. Any revenue collected should be fed back into waste minimisation.

“Surely any warranted increase should be justified by allocating further funds to strategic waste management initiatives, but as it stands now only a quarter of the collected revenue will be invested in waste management.