Hobsons Bay Council bins unpopular garbage policy

A push to dump the resumption of weekly garbage collection in Melbourne’s west faced a hostile reaction at an urgent meeting of the Hobsons Bay Council.

Hobsons Bay Council will resume weekly rubbish collection after a push to block the resumption failed at an urgent meeting. Parents Mark and Davina Geels hold onto their children Hamish, 3 and Imogen, 1, as they load excess rubbish into their car. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

A Greens mayor in Melbourne‘s west has lost his bid to force residents back into a fortnightly bin collection, with an urgent motion defeated in a heated council meeting.

At a meeting last week, councillors voted 4-2 to return to weekly pick-ups but on Friday three councillors — including Greens mayor Jonathon Marsden filed an urgent motion to rescind the decision.

The motion was defeated 4-3 at Thursday’s meeting to cheers from the public gallery, where angry residents brandished “Empty my bin weekly” signs.

In a long and sometimes heated debate, independent councillors Pamela Sutton-Legaud and Peter Hemphill, who launched the move with the mayor, argued the June vote had breached the Local Government Act.

However, when asked, a representative of the council’s chief executive, Aaron van Egmond, said their personal understanding was that no breach had occurred.

Councillors Hemphill and Ms Sutton-Legaud argued that there was broad support for the fortnightly system and Cr Hemphill suggested that claims of outrage were fake news, to heckling and derisive laughs from the public.