Hampton Park waste transfer station proposal 'a load of rubbish'

Rachel made a contribution to a tabled petition, advocating against the development of Veolia’s waste transfer station in Hampton Park. With the proposed site located 250 metres from homes and over 500 trucks set to be deployed through the local area, Rachel spoke on the inevitable disruption to the local community.

Wednesday the 28th of May 2025,
Victorian Legislative Council

Rachel endorsed a petition calling for a block on the development of a waste transfer station in Hampton Park.

Rachel Payne (South-Eastern Metropolitan):

I would like to begin by welcoming residents of Hampton Park here for this debate and thanking them for their ongoing advocacy. Because of your efforts, today we call on the government to ensure that a waste transfer station is not constructed in Hampton Park.

Six out of every 10 people in Hampton Park were born overseas, and eight out of every 10 residents have parents born overseas. Hampton Park is a suburb of people who choose to make Australia home and raise their families in the south-east. When they bought their houses, most residents were told that the landfill site was nearing capacity and would be rehabilitated into parkland. Many homes built in the 1990s stand within 500 metres of the landfill site. It is not surprising then that the people living in these homes were looking forward to the prospect of the landfill being replaced with parkland. But in 2022 there was a change of plan. Out of nowhere the then Andrews government declared the tip to be an ongoing waste site of state significance – the world’s worst accolade.

Now the operator, Veolia, has applied to run a new waste transfer station adjacent to the site, just 250 metres or less from homes. Unfortunately, the community do not have a lot of faith in Veolia, who have been taken to the Supreme Court for breaching licence conditions. According to the EPA, Veolia allowed methane gas emissions from the tip to reach unhealthy levels 22 times and generated toxic run-off onto farmland. They are bad operators.

Veolia’s proposed waste transfer station would process the rubbish of nine councils, making it the biggest waste transfer station in Victoria, crunching through half a million tonnes of waste each year. It is also the only waste transfer station of this scale not planned in an industrial area. I do not think it is okay to dump half a million tonnes of waste into people’s homes. That is why I have joined the community in their fight to stop this obscene proposal, because it is not okay to treat people like rubbish.

Last month the EPA refused Veolia’s development licence for the transfer station, citing unacceptable risk to human health and the environment. This aligns with community concerns, with over 750 submissions made to the EPA. Over 95 per cent of respondents are against the proposal. But before the EPA even handed down its decision, Veolia applied to VCAT for a review. They claimed the application review timeframe expired on 23 January, but the EPA made a request for information on 24 January. Basically, Veolia have called in the umpire because the EPA was one day late, and now residents are in a limbo while they await VCAT’s decision.

If the transfer station is built, there will be more than 500 trucks coming and going 18 hours a day. Along with household waste, the centre would accept demolition waste, fluorescent tubes, gas bottles, acid batteries, metals, paints, soils and TVs, to name a few. This is on the nose, metaphorically and literally. More than half of the waste at the waste transfer station, 350,000 tonnes, will be compacted into sealed containers and then go on a 120-kilometre trip to the contentious Maryvale incinerator.

This has all grown out of the 2020 Recycling Victoria policy designed to protect the environment. And yet here we are, trucking 325,000 tonnes of rubbish from a south-eastern suburb down the Princes Highway to burn in the Latrobe Valley. There is no denying we need to move away from the model of rubbish going straight into landfill, but we must also consider the impact of amenity. Veolia itself boasts that its Clyde transfer facility in New South Wales is one of the most efficient transfer stations in the world. And why is that? Because it is on a railway line, reducing local truck movements by 37,000 per annum. Frankly, allowing a waste transfer station in a residential area with 500 trucks a day moving through the local community is not a solution. Do we really want to set that precedent? I think it is all a load of rubbish.

> Stop the Hampton Park Waste Transfer Station – Rachel Payne
> Hampton Park waste transfer station proposal – Rachel Payne
> Truck traffic from proposed Hampton Park waste transfer station – Rachel Payne
> Decision to deny Hampton Park waste transfer station must be upheld – Rachel Payne
> LCV MP welcomes EPA decision not to support Hampton Park Waste Transfer Station – Rachel Payne