Before Tracey Butler's daughter comes around with the grandkids, she calls and asks: "What's the smell like today?"

Tracey's home south-west of Brisbane borders the Swanbank Industrial Area, where there's multiple dumps, composting, and mulching sites.

"Last night, it smelt like complete raw sewage. It made me gag," Ms Butler said.

"You very rarely will go a day without it. You might be lucky and you get a couple of days, but that's a rare occasion."

Ms Butler said she hardly left the house because of the smell. She's a long-time member of Stop the Stink, a local community group advocating for odour action.

Since 2018 Queensland's Environment Department has received thousands of complaints about the smells.

It has led to several prosecutions against operators, with the latest and largest fine handed to Cleanaway, which operates a landfill at New Chum, last month.

Residents say the odours are having an ongoing impact on their health, and they want more done to investigate those concerns.

"My husband and I have seen kids walk past our house going to school vomiting, and that's from being out in the smell," Ms Butler said.

Michelle Filippi moved to Redbank Plains from Melbourne in December 2021.

After the move she began to develop eczema rashes.

"Not long after, the hives began every time I would sweat, it was terrible," she said.

"The rashes got so much worse as time went on.

"I saw doctor after doctor, they kept giving me steroid ointment and steroid tablets, but no one was looking at the other factors that could be causing this."

She's long been an advocate for a health inquiry and hopes it will be a "top priority" for the new LNP state government.

In 2022 the Ipswich City Council urged the government to hold an inquiry, but that request was rejected after then-chief health officer Dr John Gerrard said he doubted a public health inquiry would help.

In the lead-up to the state election, the LNP promised it would hold an inquiry if it won government.

The party's former health spokesperson Ros Bates, said at the time the odours were "unacceptable" and raised "serious concerns" about "potential health impacts". 

Health Minister Tim Nicholls did not respond to the ABC's questions about when an inquiry would be held.

Speaking earlier today, Premier David Crisafulli said Mr Nicholls had already begun work on the inquiry, but didn't say when it would be.

"We promised it in the lead up to the election so residents know that it's going to happen," Mr Crisafulli said. 

"I have a very dim view of politicians that don't follow things through.

"Residents who bravely called it out need to know that they will get the opportunity to be able to see that inquiry occur."

Ipswich mayor Teresa Harding wants to see one within 12 months.

"We can't wait. It's been such a journey for so many residents for over a decade," Cr Harding said. 

"They have rashes, nausea, headaches.

"It's just not right and the sooner we have this public health inquiry done the better."

Record odour fine

Last month, operator Cleanaway was handed a $600,000 fine for "rotten egg" odours emitted from its New Chum facility after heavy rains in 2022.

The fine was one of the largest ever given to a waste company. 

But Ms Harding said that's still short of its CEO's bonus, which that year reportedly totalled nearly $1 million. 

"The fine itself is minuscule in comparison to the impact on our residents. The odours were dreadful. Thousands of residents couldn't go outside their homes for months."

The company said since the 2022 rains it's spent $60 million on storm water management, landfill gas capture, and capping.

Local activist and former Greens candidate Danielle Mutton said the fine wouldn't put a dent in Cleanaway's hip pocket.

"This isn't the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last time," she said.

"But the problem is, every time there is an issue with non-compliance … these waste operators get to continue and keep their profits that they make while they're operating non-compliantly.

"It just builds this culture of thinking we don't have to comply with environmental authorities.

"We need the fines to increase. The regulator needs more teeth. We need more air monitoring stations in any suburbs where people are impacted by the odour of the waste industry."

Drop in odour reports

In its latest newsletter update to residents, the Department of Environment said there had been a drop in odour reports in the past year. 

"Since 2022, most odour reports now come from the Redbank Plains, Ripley and South Ripley areas and are predominantly linked to composting facilities in Swanbank. 

"Between June 2023 and June 2024, we have seen a 70 per cent drop in odour reports."

Across Queensland, there have been 3,321 odour reporters statewide so far this year. This is down from 8,515 in 2023. 

"Stronger regulations for composting facility standards have been introduced," the department said. 

"These changes will help to reduce the impacts of odour from composting facilities by requiring new and expanding operations that receive odorous waste within four kilometres of a residential zone to use in-vessel or enclosed processing.

"This form of processing is considered best practice in reducing nuisance odours from leaving sites and affecting nearby residents."

Tracey Butler just wants to to able to go out into her backyard with her family and have a barbecue.

"I know it sounds crazy saying that, because everybody else in Brisbane and that will be going 'Really, you can't have a barbecue?'" she said. 

"No, you can't."