A Labor government would introduce a kerbside "hard waste" collection service, allowing Canberrans to more easily get rid of bulky items such as timber, household furniture, and televisions, ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr will announce on Saturday.
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The collections would visit each suburb once a year, Mr Barr said. He is yet to announce a start date for the service, but a spokesman said the intention was to fund the service in the 2017-18 budget and begin during that year.
The promise had not been costed yet, but would be fully costed before the election, the spokesman said.
The decision had been made after feedback from Canberrans, who had been "very clear" on wanting bulky waste collected at the kerb.
"The hard waste pick up service will be an important community service for people who find it difficult or inconvenient to dispose of large, unwanted household items," Mr Barr said.
The announcement follows the announcement of a green waste collection pilot program in Weston Creek and Kambah next year. Households in those suburbs will have to pay $50 for the bin and the fortnightly collections are expected to cost $1.72 million a year. But unlike the green waste service, the bulky waste collections will be free.
To date, Canberra has no bulky waste collections other than for concession card holders, nor green waste collections, although informally people put items on their kerbs in the hope someone might pick them up for reuse.
The Stanhope government announced a one-year trial of of bulk waste collection in 2010-11, for which Canberrans other than concession-card holders and pensioners, were to pay a fee. It appears the service was only put in place for concession card holders.
Mr Barr said the government would also fund not-for-profit organisation Givit to match requests for donated goods with unwanted items, so usable furniture, fridges, TVs, computers and other essentials could be given to people who need them.
Givit chief executive Juliette Wright said Givit operated as a "virtual warehouse", linking people who had items to give with people who had urgent need. It was now talking with the ACT about a formal agreement to manage donations for ACT charities, focusing initially on domestic violence and scaling up to manage donations in times of emergency or crisis.
Mr Barr will make his announcement at Saturday's Labor Party conference, expected to be a relatively unified affair given it is an election year.
The conference is expected to pass a resolution calling on the federal Labor Party to abandon its conscience on abortion in favour of binding pro-choice position. The option has the support of the party's Left faction, the biggest group at the conference.
