Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's move to introduce a waste levy to stop NSW dumpers trucking rubbish across the border has been branded a "filthy rotten tax" by the opposition.
State cabinet has signed off on resurrecting the levy to deter companies from shipping waste north because it's cheaper.
The levy was axed by the Liberal National Party in 2012, a year after the Bligh Labor government first imposed it.
Ms Palaszczuk claimed in state parliament she was fixing a mess the previous LNP government created, saying the levy would "stop the trucks."
LNP Environment spokesman David Crisafulli said the government was using a blanket solution for a very specific problem, and the cost would be passed on to Queenslanders.
"You can call it a levy, you can call it a duty, you can call it an excise; it's a filthy rotten tax," he told reporters on Tuesday.
"I reckon we might be able to come up with a solution to the half a dozen people doing the wrong thing, rather than a solution which asks the vast majority of Queenslanders to pay for it."
Treasurer Jackie Trad suggested the government would consider a rebate or cost offset scheme to ensure the levy wasn't passed on to those it shouldn't be.
"We want to make sure that it is the big polluters, particularly the big polluters from NSW who pay the cost and not Queenslanders," Ms Trad said.
The levy is aimed at operators like large construction companies, which trucked more than 900,000 tonnes of waste into Queensland in the 2016/17 financial year alone.
Reintroduction of the impost was a key recommendation from a waste investigation led by former Supreme Court justice Peter Lyons QC.
The government set up the inquiry after the ABC's Four Corners program exposed the scale of dumping by NSW operators intent on avoiding their own state's levy.
The former LNP government scrapped Queensland's $35 per tonne waste charge in 2012, and Labor refused to reinstate it during its first term, pushing instead for a national waste strategy.
But after Labor increased its majority at last year's election, the levy is firmly back on the agenda, with legislation expected to be introduced to parliament later this year.
Australian Associated Press
