"No dump in Auburn!"

A noisy and impassioned demonstration by approximately 500 
people took place outside Parliament House Sydney on Tuesday 
(December 2) at the same time as Premier Bob Carr was trying to 
rush special legislation through Parliament to overrule a 
decision by the Land and Environment Court. The demonstration was 
organised by the "No Dump Residents Association" and the "Auburn 
Community Alliance" to rally local residents against the proposed 
waste dump at Auburn, in Sydney's western suburbs.

Speakers at the demonstration included Auburn resident and 
Community Alliance member, Tony Oldfield, Ed Mason from the 
Auburn Branch of the CPA, Sylvia Hale from the NSW Greens, and 
Yan Xing from the Auburn Chinese Association.

The large and very vocal crowd represented a wide cross-section 
of local residents including Sofia and Lisa, neighbours in Auburn 
for 35 years, who between them have five children and 10 
grandchildren living in the Auburn Granville area.

For them this represents a serious environmental justice issue. 
Rich areas of Sydney should not force poorer parts of Sydney to 
deal with their garbage. "It's unfair", said Sofia. "Why should 
we get the health and pollution problems?"

The Land and Environment Court had decided that a proposal by the 
waste management company Collex to build a centralised Sydney-
wide garbage dump at Auburn/Clyde was unacceptable. However, Bob 
Carr and the Labor Party are prepared to overrule the court and 
allow Collex to go ahead, no doubt mindful of a generous 
"donation" of nearly $100,000 the company gave the Labor Party.

Collex is a subsidiary of the French multinational Vivendi, which 
has interests in water utilities, waste management, entertainment 
and communications around the globe. It is a partner in the water 
treatment plant at Prospect reservoir.

Vivendi has a long, documented history of bribery and corruption. 
There have already been convictions of public officials in Lyons 
in France, Milan in Italy and New Orleans, USA, and there are 
serious allegations of corruption hanging over Vivendi projects 
in Indonesia, India, Argentina and Kenya.

The history of the relationship between Collex and the NSW Carr 
Government is also interesting. Collex won a contract from the 
Government to remove half a million tonnes of municipal household 
waste from the Northern Sydney region. This is one third of all 
of Sydney's putrescible (rotting) garbage.

The contract requires Collex to install modern compactors and 
make other upgrades for the existing government-owned waste 
stations at Belrose, Artamon and Ryde. Collex also has to buy 
trucks, containers and pay for the drivers transporting the 
waste. They have to compact the waste into sealed containers and 
transport them to a suitable railhead for transfer to their 
landfill site at Woodlawn, near Goulburn south of Sydney.

Now Collex is refusing to comply with their contract. They do not 
want to reduce their profits by going to the expense of upgrading 
the existing Waste Services Transfer Stations. What Collex is now 
demanding is one mega waste transfer station near a railway line 
in the centre of greater Sydney, forcing all the council garbage 
trucks to come to them. Collex says the best site for this is 
Auburn.

So now Collex is planning to construct a giant central waste 
processing plant facility — a garbage dump — in the middle of 
Sydney. As 100 per cent of their costs are covered by the NSW 
Government, courtesy of North Shore ratepayers, Collex can 
undercut all other waste management providers.

Collex plans to expand the facility in a series of stages, 
finally receiving waste from all of Sydney. The facility is 
intended to eventually process 1.6 million tonnes of putrescible 
garbage per annum. The consequences for the local residents will 
be enormous.

Collex should have been sifting the waste since January 1, 2001, 
but the waste is currently going to Menai tip which is already 
well over capacity.

The Land and Environment Court ruled against the planned waste 
dump at Auburn/Clyde on several grounds. The plant has unfiltered 
open-air ventilation, so rotten odour will come from the plant 
itself and from the thousands of garbage trucks from all over 
Sydney converging on Auburn 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 
Air and noise pollution will increase dramatically. Roads are 
likely to become pot-holed and accidents will increase.

The court decided the dump would attract other noxious industries 
to the local area and that it would encourage vermin. The health 
of residents in Auburn, Clyde and Granville will be compromised. 
Cases of asthma and other respiratory diseases will increase.

In brief the dump will destroy the quality of life of local 
residents. It will also lower property values in all surrounding 
areas. However, since this is a safe Labor-voting working class 
area, populated by many migrants of non-English speaking 
background, the Government believes it can get away with it.

However, Bob Carr and the Auburn local ALP Member of Parliament 
Barbara Perry, have not calculated on the strength of opposition 
to the Collex plans in the local community. Thousands of local 
residents have already expressed their opposition to the 
proposal, and buoyed by the victory in the Land and Environment 
Court, they are determined to continue to fight.

The Auburn Community Alliance has formed to fight the proposed 
dump and campaign on other issues on behalf of the residents of 
Auburn.

Alliance member Tony Oldfield, quoted in the district newspaper 
The Auburn Review, said, "This is a massive betrayal of 
local residents by the Labor Party and the State Government. Bob 
Carr reckons it's okay for every piece of rubbish collected in 
Sydney to be dumped in Auburn. I bet they wouldn't try this on 
posh suburbs like Mosman or Vaucluse".

The Auburn Branch of the CPA has been instrumental in the 
establishment of the Alliance and is active in the campaign to 
stop the dump. The battle against Collex and its plans will 
clearly be a long-term one and The Guardian will keep 
readers up-to-date as events unfold.