we’re holding a rally in davidson park, beaudesert (the park beside the council chambers) on saturday 10 october at 11am.
make a sign, bring a friend or three, bring a chair or picnic rug, water and snacks, and join with other concerned community members to voice your concerns and show our council, state and federal members that we do not support this proposal and we don’t want the scenic rim to become the scenic bin for our urban neighbours' waste.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) issued their draft determination on 21 August which did not support the CoMSEQ application. The Council of Mayors South East Queensland (CoMSEQ) withdrew its original application for authorisation to the ACCC.
The original CoMSEQ application, lodged in April on behalf of eleven South East Queensland councils, sought authorisation to jointly procure residual waste management services under a 35-year contractual arrangement, the kind of long-term commitment that would underpin industrial-scale waste incineration in the region.
The new revised application differs from the earlier application. In particular, CoMSEQ is now seeking authorisation for a three year period of preparatory and planning activities and have stated that the proposed conduct will not extend to binding agreements for waste supply, construction, financing, or facility operation. The application further indicates that no feedstock will be committed and no procurement decisions will be made during this interim period.
These limitations substantially reduce some of the immediate competition concerns raised by the previous application. However, the preparatory activities contemplated during this three-year period could still have a significant influence on the structure and outcomes of any subsequent regional procurement process.
It is still very important to make a submission on this new application suggesting that the ACCC ensure additional safeguards guarantee the planning process remains open and competitive, and doesn't inadvertently narrow the range of future options or constrain effective competition before a final procurement decision is made.
The ACCC is now inviting submissions in relation to this second application, by 2 October before making its final decision.
We have prepared sample responses to this second CoMSEQ application.
Please send your submission asap using the ACCC submissions webform.
For short submissions, you can provide a free text submission of up to 2,000 characters (a few paragraphs) for publication on the public register, or for longer submissions, please upload your submission in a document.
These sample submissions will open as google docs, which you can either download or copy and paste the content where you need it, like a word document.
ACCC short form submission 2A (free text submission)ACCC long form submission 2D (to be sent as an attachment)
If you can reword your submissions based on these samples to enable them to be counted as different individual responses, that would be great. Otherwise send as is.
It will only take about five or ten minutes. Your name will appear on the public register, your email and phone won't.
No Incinerator for Scenic Rim responds to ACCC withdrawal of CoMSEQ authorisation application
The No Incinerator for Scenic Rim campaign has welcomed the withdrawal of a key regulatory application linked to the proposed Bromelton waste incinerator, while warning the community that the fight is far from over.
The Council of Mayors South East Queensland (CoMSEQ) yesterday withdrew its application for authorisation (AA1000721) to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The application, lodged in April 2026 on behalf of eleven South East Queensland councils, sought authorisation to jointly procure residual waste management services under a 35-year contractual arrangement, the kind of long-term commitment that would underpin industrial-scale waste incineration in the region.
The ACCC issued a draft determination on 21 August. Following that, at least one interested party formally requested a pre-decision conference to challenge the determination. CoMSEQ withdrew the application on 15 September 2026.
However, CoMSEQ's legal representatives at Clayton Utz have confirmed the withdrawal is temporary. A new application is expected to be resubmitted, with additional detail on technology and sites.
This withdrawal tells us the original application had problems, problems serious enough that CoMSEQ couldn't defend it in a public conference. That's a direct result of the community speaking up through the submissions process. But we're not naive. They've told their lawyers to come back with a stronger case. So must we. When that new application lands, we need every Scenic Rim voice ready to respond.
What happens next
When CoMSEQ lodges a new application, there will be a fresh public consultation period. Community members will again have the opportunity to make submissions to the ACCC.
No Incinerator for Scenic Rim is calling on residents to stay informed and be ready to act.
Monitor the ACCC public register for updates.
Sign the petition.
Documents submitted with the Bromelton incinerator application reveal commercial agriculture was excluded from the food safety assessment
The community campaign opposing a proposed waste incinerator at Bromelton has found a critical gap at the heart of Cleanaway's own health assessment - the 310-page report does not assess what the facility's emissions could mean for the Scenic Rim's commercial farming industry.
The Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA), prepared by consultants engaged by Cleanaway and submitted as part of the Environmental Impact Statement for the Bromelton Energy and Resource Centre (BERC), explicitly limits its food safety modelling to "home grown produce wholly consumed by those living on a property where the produce is grown."
Commercial beef, dairy, egg and vegetable production, the industries that make the Scenic Rim Queensland's primary food production corridor , are not assessed.
"This isn't alarmism. It's in their own documents. Cleanaway's consultants assessed what happens to someone's backyard vegetable patch. They did not assess what dioxins and PFAS could do to the beef, dairy, eggs and vegetables this region produces at scale for Queensland and national markets", says Lizz Hills, member of the BERC stakeholder reference group.
The Scenic Rim's agricultural sector contributes more than $400 million annually to the regional economy and supports over 4,000 local jobs. Dioxins and PFAS, persistent pollutants emitted during waste incineration, are known to bioaccumulate in animal fat and persist in soil for decades.
The same document reveals a second significant gap which is there is no air quality baseline for Bromelton. Instead of measuring what pollutants are currently in the air at the proposed site, the report uses monitoring data from Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, collected around the year 2000. Without a rural Scenic Rim baseline, it is not possible to determine the true incremental burden BERC would impose on local air quality.
The campaign has made three formal requests to the Coordinator-General: an extension of the public submission response period; mandatory independent baseline air quality monitoring that covers dioxins, PFAS, PAHs and heavy metals, and an independent traffic and road impact assessment for the Mount Lindesay Highway corridor. The findings from the assessments directly support each of these requests.
At an upcoming community stakeholder session, the campaign will put specific questions to Cleanaway, including asking why commercial agriculture was excluded from the food safety assessment, and whether the company has post-treatment PFAS emission measurements from any facility using the same technology proposed for BERC.
"The Scenic Rim's food security and the livelihoods of our farmers deserve a genuine answer not a reference to a document that doesn't cover them", says Erica Bates, Keep the Scenic Rim Scenic.
• The BERC Human Health Risk Assessment (CLEAN/25/BERC001-F, Final 15 July 2026) was prepared by Environmental Risk Sciences Pty Ltd (enRiskS) for Cleanaway Operations Pty Ltd
