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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Tuesday, 3 August 2004) . . Page.. 3363 ..

I hope that this legislation will encourage more prosecutions. I do not say that in a nasty way. Once again, in response to question No 1630, Mr Wood has kindly provided me with details of littering offences in the last 12 months—from July 2003 to 30 June 2004. We find that the offences total 41. You have only to look at the litter around the city, around the territory, to realise that more than the 41 people prosecuted are committing offences. The convictions are not very good. There has been one arrest; the case has yet to be heard. There was one caution and no further action was taken. There have been two summonses: one convicted, one dismissed. Litter infringement notices issued by the city rangers total 37: 24 have been paid, the remaining have continuing action.

Again, the application of this legislation needs to be addressed. I hope that, as a result of this being passed, we will get much better results from fining people for what, after all, is another very grubby, dirty business. I think it sometimes comes from laziness. People cannot be bothered taking their rubbish to the right place. Therefore they just dump it beside the road.

It raises a few questions. I am unsure about, but heartened by the minister’s comments. One of these relates to the distribution of free newspapers—not by pamphlet droppers, but by vehicle. This creates a small problem, as members would be aware. If you are tossing a free newspaper around, there is a good chance that you will throw it into some garden or an area where people do not want it—unlike paid publications, for which addresses are known.

I raise the matter, as Mr Wood would be aware, in relation to a pilot program that I understood was taking place in the suburb of Florey. The minister wrote back and said that it was not proposed to directly legislate to prevent drive-by delivery of newspapers; however the matter could be continued to be looked at. I am happy to accept the minister’s comment on that. He qualified it by saying, “Should the above controls and proposals of this Litter Act to impose sanctions on littering from vehicles proceed, there would be a potential means to control the activity.” Again, I will wait and see in relation to that. However, apart from that minor quibble, the opposition is happy to support the legislation.

MS TUCKER (4.57): A sophisticated response is required to manage a complex social problem such as littering. Enforcement measures are a big stick approach to litter abatement and prevention. However, a more holistic approach to litter abatement requires a shift in focus from litter clean-up programs to litter prevention programs. Avoiding the creation of waste is as important for governments to address as disposal and recycling of waste. To avoid litter, we need an effective framework to manage it, one that has clear vision, objectives, adequate legislation and sufficient resources.

I recognise that this legislation is to update the Litter Act and that some of the features of the bill are the addition of obligation upon individuals to dispose of litter in a way that prevents its escape onto public land. I have also prepared an amendment based on this idea; that is, to create an offence for the mass release of balloons. I will talk about that later.

There is the expansion of the definition of the meaning of public place to include any place that the public has access to versus the current definition, which is essentially

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