Fairfield City Mayor Frank Carbone is today calling upon the NSW Government to stop the rubbish tax and return the money to ratepayers or use it to invest in much-needed waste and recycling infrastructure and initiatives.
“The NSW Government collects $763 million per year from ratepayers in a waste levy. In Fairfield it is $11 million this year, about $160 per household. This is a tax on rubbish collection, designed to be used for waste recycling initiatives. The government spends only 10% of the money it collects on waste and recycling initiatives. That’s more than $700 million going into the NSW Government’s pockets each year for no reason and with no benefit for ratepayers.
“Given that this State Government tax is not being used for waste and recycling initiatives, we think the tax should be given back to the community and we as a council would reduce our rates.
“I urge the NSW Government, if you’re not going to use this money to provide better recycling services, give this $160 back to each household through reduced rates.”
“In a city like Fairfield, we have 65,000 households and the NSW government will collect $11 million in this rubbish tax from our rate payers this year, through the rates and charges. That’s $11 million in tax literally for nothing. It does not pay for waste collection or disposal, it simply taxes it.
“In our city alone, if this tax was not passed onto our ratepayers, we could reduce our rates and charges each year by around $160 per household. That’s money in residents’ pockets, not the government’s.
“Today I am urging the NSW government to either remove the tax they do not currently spend on waste and recycling initiatives and allow us to reduce our rates; or provide that money back to each council or region to be used to build waste and recycling centres and/or waste reduction initiatives and education. That, after all, is what the money was meant for.”
“Not only has the government not invested this money in new projects for local communities, but this year they have increased this levy by 7.7% from 1 July 2023. Every time a council puts their rates up by 2-3% to keep up with the costs of maintaining roads, infrastructure and services, it is always a matter for discussion among the community and politicians. Yet the state government has quietly raised the waste levy which is essentially a secret tax – money for doing nothing.
“We now have an opportunity to drop our rates by at least 10% and look after struggling families – without impacting our services at all. This could have similar impacts on all councils especially in western Sydney where we have larger families. Larger families means more rubbish and more tax.”
“This tax is not only imposed on residents through their annual rates bill, but every time they need to dispose of additional rubbish at a waste and recycling centre.
“This tax not only increases rates but also encourages people to dump rubbish on our streets, including things like asbestos purely because of the high price of disposal.
“There are some goods that simply cannot be recycled. Why is the government taxing disposal of goods that cannot be recycled? We should be encouraging people to dispose of goods properly.
“I’m writing to Chris Minns to ask him to drop the tax on people’s rubbish and to the western Sydney mayors asking them to join us in making sure that we do what we can to keep our rates low and improve recycling facilities”
