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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Tuesday, 3 August 2004) . . Page.. 3366 ..

MR HARGREAVES (5.05): I pose a question now—which I hope Ms Tucker might be able to answer when she talks to her amendment—rather than wait till she moves the amendment. She might as well address it at the time she does it.

The bill describes what litter is. It talks about the object of the act. It is really about not having the place untidy. Litter includes any material deposited at a place of a size, nature and volume that makes the place untidy. I wonder about whether sticking bills or posters on public places constitutes littering.

Mr Cornwell, quite rightly, makes much of graffiti around the place. I was wondering about the sticking of a bill or poster on a public place and whether it would make the place untidy. So whilst the debate was going I scurried off down the road to City Walk and discovered some bills and posters stuck on a public place. In fact, this was a rectangular structure, four sides of which had bills posted on it. Most of them had been torn down. It looked very untidy. Ergo, by definition, the putting of those things in a public place was untidy, and therefore in my view constituted litter.

They were a couple of advertisements for meetings to be held by the Socialist Alternative, curiously tomorrow at 1 pm and on Thursday evening. It also gives its website. So if this is in fact illegal, the website is available and they can be chased up and promptly dealt with.

I also recall that during the last election—and many times before that—there were very big green triangular signs stuck all over the place in the town. In the context of an election campaign that is fine. I think there is provision in the act that if it complies with the Commonwealth Electoral Act—

Mr Cornwell: Kangaroos crossing or something?

MR HARGREAVES: Yes, something like that—and something about dams occasionally. If it does not contravene the Commonwealth Electoral Act, that is fine—you can do things like that—put things in letterboxes and what not. But I believe that it constitutes littering if those things are not removed after the election.

I ask whether Ms Tucker’s amendments will make it promptly illegal for the Greens to keep doing this sort of stuff and whether, in the context of the act, these activities of placing bills on public places will constitute littering. Will people therefore commit an offence? We note that this is a strict liability offence. So mitigating circumstances do not really come into it, as far as I am aware. I would like to know whether the Greens, in promoting these amendments, agree or disagree that sticking triangular green posters on public places constitutes littering.

MRS CROSS (5.09): I rise to support the bill. I will speak very briefly to the bill and to Ms Tucker’s proposed amendments, which I will support.

Mr Speaker, if we are going to have new litter legislation, as I have said, I am all for making it as comprehensive as we can while the opportunity exists. It is very helpful to our efforts to control litter if, along the way, we can work to reduce the quantity of material that could potentially become litter. It seems to me that this is the general thrust

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