Think the Tamala Park mess isn’t your problem? Think again.
Mindarie Regional Council isn’t some private waste company that can be left to clean up its own mess.
It’s a regional local government, owned by seven member councils: Joondalup, Stirling, Wanneroo, Perth, Cambridge, Vincent, and Victoria Park.
So when reports talk about the enormous cost of dealing with the clean-up, it’s worth remembering where the buck ultimately stops.
With the member councils. And behind them, their ratepayers.
According to the City of Perth’s recent report, a 2025 assessment considered options for treating the leachate off-site, with costs ranging from tens of millions of dollars to more than $1 billion.
And here’s the really frightening bit.
Those estimates were based on the old estimate of 417 million litres of leachate. By October 2025, MRC’s estimate had increased to 2.07 billion litres.
The City of Joondalup has a one-sixth share of MRC, or 16.67%.
So if the $1 billion figure is in the ballpark and the costs were divided according to ownership shares, Joondalup’s one-sixth share would be about $167 million.
The truth is, the community still doesn’t know the full extent of the environmental and financial cost of this problem.
My point is that it’s well past time we did.
This is no longer just a smelly tip problem. It’s an environmental and financial liability that could run into hundreds of millions of dollars, with ratepayers ultimately downwind of the bill.
If you agree, call on Environment Minister Matthew Swinbourn and Local Government Minister Hannah Beazley to step in.
We need to know who is going to pay, how much, and what the State Government intends to do about it.
#wakeupjoondalup