Page 4242 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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That was my comment, because I think everyone should be treated equally here. You cannot excuse the slack consumer who throws out beer cans and pollutes with rubbish, and single out the manufacturer to pay for the negligence and bad behaviour of someone at the end of the line. Similarly, if a manufacturer does the wrong thing and pollutes, if industry pollutes, they should be penalised as well.
I come now to the question of littering. Container deposit legislation in South Australia was not aimed only at recycling. It was initially brought in predominantly as a litter reduction measure. There are a number of items in the litter stream that are not covered in South Australia by CDL. The items Ms Ellis mentioned, such as paper wrappings and so on, are not covered by CDL. I suppose that the argument there would be that you could put CDL on such products, but probably that is impractical. Action could be taken to enforce the provisions in the Litter Act and give it more teeth. At present in the ACT litter infringement notices, which are hardly ever given, carry a penalty of $200 and they have to be issued by an authorised inspector, of whom there are two in the Department of Urban Services. Those inspectors have other duties besides litter control. Private citizens can also report individuals they have observed littering, but they are pretty loath to do so because they have to provide a statutory declaration and be prepared to appear in court to substantiate their claims. Police also can issue litter infringement notices. Consequently, very little is done there. Perhaps more attention needs to be given to that. Perhaps more departmental officers need to be given power to enforce those provisions. I would also suggest breaking up the infringement notices. I think the penalty of $200 should remain for people who throw paper out and are careless with products that are not as harmful as some others; but I suggest a $500 infringement notice for such things as beer bottles, which are far more dangerous. Certainly, if you go around our cycle paths you see a lot of broken beer bottles, which people regularly complain about.
One further thing that I was keen to see included in the paper is items that up until this time no-one has thought of putting a deposit on but which take up a fair amount of tip space: Car bodies; tyres, which are an increasing problem because of the millions that are dumped around Australia every year; oil products; batteries, which leak and cause problems in their own right; and whitegoods, which take up a lot of space at our tips. (Extension of time granted) In some countries a deposit is placed on those goods and they are returned and get out of the litter stream in that way. I note that this question has been looked at in other States. I think the Tasmanian committee, whilst not recommending CDL on a lot of products, indicated that strong evidence before it suggested that CDL, or some sort of deposit legislation, could be placed on these large items such as car bodies, tyres and whitegoods. I think that has merit.
In summary, Madam Speaker, this is a challenging report for a future Assembly. It raises a lot of issues, not only in relation to the compass of container deposit legislation but also in relation to packaging, recycling and litter generally. I hope that the future Assembly committee will take it up and will come down with some positive recommendations. I do, however, indicate that I am sceptical about container deposit legislation as it applies in South Australia being applied to the ACT. Perhaps we are in a different situation and do not necessarily need it. However, this is a good report, worthy of consideration by a future Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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