In collaboration with Member Councils, Central Coast Council and a wide range of stakeholder organisations, the Hunter JO team provided a submission in response to IPART’s Draft Report – Review of Domestic Waste Management Charges. Our key recommendations were:

1. Councils don’t accept the underlying premise upon which implementation of the IPART review has been initiated
2. Councils hold serious concerns that both the voluntary rate peg or a rebalancing exercise could direct Councils to act contrary to existing legislation
3. The cost of Domestic Waste Management (DWM) service provision varies greatly across geographical and historical contexts, population densities, transport infrastructure and other circumstantial differences. Given the highly contextual nature of these costs, and their interdependencies, Councils are best placed to determine value for money for ratepayers.
4. That the proposed voluntary DWM rate peg be abandoned in favour of improved pricing guidelines, reporting tools, and auditing processes that support councils to set DWM charges in line with their community needs and expectations.
5. That as the least worst option presented to date, Councils favour benchmarking, clear and consistent pricing principles, an opportunity to rebalance DWM charges with general rates, over a minimum 2-year transition period, based on updated and expanded definitions of ‘waste’ and ‘domestic waste management services’ that include all activities involved in the minimisation of, source separation, collection, recovery, processing and disposal of all forms of domestically generated waste.

A copy of the submission can be viewed on our website HERE.