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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 902 ..

Proposed new clause 10A

MS HORODNY (4.13): I move:

Page 3, line 30, after clause 10 insert the following clause:

"Consequential amendment - Litter Act 1977

10A. (1) Section 2 of the Litter Act 1977 is amended by inserting the following definition:

` "garden waste" means waste or soil or landscaping material, that contains plant material capable of propagating;'.

(2) Section 3A of the Litter Act 1977 is repealed and the following section substituted:

Depositing of commercial waste or garden waste

`3A. A person shall not deposit commercial waste or garden waste in or on a public place.

Penalty: 50 penalty units or imprisonment for 6 months, or both.'.

(3) Section 4 of the Litter Act 1977 is amended by omitting from paragraph (a) `or commercial waste' and substituting `, commercial waste or garden waste'.".

Mr Speaker, this amendment ensures that the dumping of garden waste which could potentially spread weeds is specifically included in the provisions of the Litter Act. At present the Litter Act does not define "garden waste", and it would be good to spell this out very clearly. For example, it is not just garden prunings that could cause problems with the spread of weeds. The dumping in the wrong place of soil that contains seeds or root material that could regenerate could also allow weeds to spread.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.14): Mr Speaker, I am not going to die in a ditch about this amendment. My advice is that the Litter Act definition of waste is sufficiently wide to pick up garden waste. It would be very hard to argue that waste produced from a garden did not constitute waste as defined in the Litter Act. That is the advice I have received from the draftspeople, but I would have to concede that the amendment does not necessarily do any significant harm to the legislation. There is a legal argument based around a legal maxim that says that if you define one thing you exclude others, but I do not press that point. I would simply say that it is not necessary to make this amendment.

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