Opinion: Annastacia Palaszczuk’s reaction to dumping ground story is rubbish

THE dumping of waste in Queensland from NSW is old news. The Courier-Mail reported it back in 2012. Kylie Lang asks why it is only now that Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk feels compelled to investigate. (Image digitally altered)

PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk is alarmed. She should be, but what took her so long?

The dumping of NSW waste in Queensland is old news. The Courier-Mail reported it back in September 2012 and again in February 2016, but it’s only now that Ms Palaszczuk feels compelled to investigate?

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she will investigate reports that NSW is using Queensland as a dumping ground. Picture: Annette Dew

Last night the ABC’s Four Corners tapped previously reported information to package up a story about an organised network of waste transporting and freight companies using our state as a tip in order to dodge a NSW landfill levy.

Outraged? We should all be. But this has been going on for years, and the Government must have known about it unless it has been hiding under a steaming pile of acrid waste in Ipswich.

Queensland’s fastest growing city was christened the dumping capital of Australia last October by then mayor Paul Pisasale.

Channel 9’s Today Show called it the “stinky city”.

And lifelong residents told News.com.au that the foul smells emanating from the dumps were impossible to get rid of once inside the home.

Five years on from our original report we’re still in the proverbial. Just more of it.

But only now the penny seems to have dropped with our Premier?

Trucks from NSW arrive and dump their loads of waste at the Wattle Glen landfill site in Redbank Plains, west of Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

As one Courier-Mail subscriber, Victoria, observed today: “This has been brought up time and time again, and the do nothing premier has, well, done nothing. Why now, must be an election around the corner, and needs a distraction. This will be another I’m furious, I’ll look into it, and nothing!”

Queenslanders have every right to be fuming over their state being turned into a giant tip for the benefit of greedy southerners for whom it’s cheaper to truck rubbish over the border than pay a $138 per tonne levy.

But we also have every right to be angry at the delay in our Government making it stop.