Page 2887 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 June 2010
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… as Canberrans we are very lucky to live in a city of many beautiful parks, nature reserves, rivers and waterways, all within the suburban area. Unfortunately, some in the community litter or dump material … can cause pollution, can be dangerous to other residents and can destroy the amenity of an area. This sort of dumping can have a financial impost on the residents of the ACT through clean-up costs. … this sort of dumping is still a problem that needs to be tackled.
Mr Coe said that when he was talking about the dangerous substances and litter-dumping legislation, but the comments are equally true for trolleys. If the Liberals have backed away from this, as they said, because they are concerned about supermarkets, I think they have got it wrong. There is nothing unreasonable about putting reasonable requirements on retailers so the amenity of Canberra and the safety and wellbeing of residents are protected.
It is also wrong to assume that supermarkets always want to collect their trolleys, so therefore they must be doing the best job they can at it. Trolley collection today is, of course, a business decision factored into the business’s bottom line. One thing I did discover in my consultation with retailers is that the price of trolleys can vary, but they have become a lot cheaper. They can be imported quite cheaply from China, and some of them cost less than $100 each. I have heard of them costing $60 each, which means that they have become a disposable item, as we can see.
The bill that I have presented provides a reasonable solution that balances the interests of retailers, the public and the territory. It puts a new onus on trolley owners to collect dumped trolleys within a 24-hour period once they have been notified. This is reasonable. It means the retailer has time to respond and there will be no penalty if they respond in that time. Uncollected trolleys can be impounded and the Uncollected Goods Act applies, meaning that the territory can regain its reasonable costs.
Retailers will need to provide contact details on trolleys, which is also a reasonable requirement, considering that trolleys end up straying so far away from their home. I must say that if we were fortunate enough to have the iPhone application that some councils have, where you use your iPhone to take a picture of the problem and it transmits the GPS location back to the government, it would become incredibly simple for all concerned. I am looking forward to that in the future.
One of the useful parts of this bill is that it encourages retailers to take more responsibility by operating trolley containment systems. Evidence shows that these systems make a difference to wandering trolleys. The Woolworths in Dickson, my local Woollies, has recently installed one. I can say that it has reduced the quantity of trolleys in Downer. This is the sort of thing we are trying to encourage with the legislation—that retailers take reasonable steps.
The bill also takes a considered approach to individuals who take trolleys. It allows authorities to require someone taking a trolley to return it, and upon failing to comply with this they can be fined. It recognises that it is commonly people who have a socioeconomic disadvantage who take trolleys from retailers.
Consultation on this matter has been considerable over an eight-month period. I wrote to local retailers as well as to other groups, such as the Australian Retailers
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