Cairns Regional Council dismisses transparency concerns around environmental reports
Debate around Cairns Regional Council’s decision to abandon annual reporting on waste, recycling and carbon emissions will move behind closed doors with councillors divided on how often data should be publicly released.
Debate around Cairns Regional Council’s decision to abandon annual reporting on waste, recycling and carbon emissions will move behind closed doors with councillors divided on how often data should be publicly released.
But CEO Ken Gouldthorp has refuted claims that the council isn’t being transparent, arguing that issuing a State of the Environment report once every four years is in line with state government guidelines.
The last report revealed that the council had recorded a 49 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2021/22 compared to 2007/08 levels.
Since then, some councillors have flagged concerns that sustainability figures may have worsened following the sale of around $2m of carbon credits in May.
Additionally, a failure to commit to improve recycling, invest in renewables and progress towards net zero in the council’s latest Corporate Plan, released earlier this year, have also raised concerns.
It is understood that Division Five councillor Rob Pyne had planned to raise a general business motion at Wednesday’s ordinary meeting for the council’s report to be delivered annually as it had been for more than a decade.
The CBD councillor instead asked Mr Gouldthorp to provide further detail on why annual reporting had been ditched.
In response, the chief executive said he was unsure what led to the changes on how often the document is released.
“The council’s annual reporting ceased in 2022,” he said. “I can’t advise on the exact details around that.
“I presume that the council of the day was informed but unfortunately neither I, nor a number of the senior executives and staff today were involved with the council at that time.”
The council will hold a workshop for councillors on climate change and environmental strategy in the coming weeks with the timing of the report to be put back on the agenda, Mr Gouldthorp said.
“It’s easy enough to talk about environmental reporting, it’s another thing to have it, and to do that reporting in a way that’s consistent and accountable,” he said.
“Not open to greenwashing and meets all the standards.
“We have myriad reports which have all our environmental information in it. It’s just not consolidated into a single report at this time.”
Division One councillor Brett Moller said a potential change to the state government’s waste levies on councils and uncertainty around new technology meant that investing in new infrastructure was challenging.
Additionally, the fire that destroyed the Bedminster Advanced Resource Recovery Facility — which forced the council to send around 20,000 tonnes more to landfill than in 2021/22 — in January had been a major setback.
“We are quite some way behind in terms of waste-to-energy pilot projects (in Australia) and I encourage both the state and federal governments to fund more of those projects,”
“We really need to see how they operate and their outcomes to be making good investment decisions.
“We know … the Gold Coast council is looking at a major waste facility. The cost of that is $1.6bn.”
Mr Gouldthorp added that all of the council’s yellow-bin waste was still being recycled.
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Originally published as Cairns Regional Council dismisses transparency concerns around environmental reports
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