Page 3923 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 2010
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Amendment agreed to.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
Litter (Shopping Trolleys) Amendment Bill 2010
Debate resumed from 30 June 2010.
Detail stage
Clause 1 agreed to.
Remainder of bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Land and Property Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (4:57), by leave: I move amendments Nos 1 to 30 circulated in my name together [see schedule 1 at page 3986].
As members are certainly aware, through this particular debate and generally as we go about Canberra, abandoned shopping trolleys are becoming and, indeed, have been a significant problem in the ACT for some time, with trolleys regularly being found throughout our suburbs, in our waterways, our lakes and drains. The government supports the intention of Ms Le Couteur’s bill to address the issue of abandoned shopping trolleys in the ACT, and I indeed commend Ms Le Couteur for bringing this bill on.
However, the government does believe that there are some efficiencies, or more efficient procedures, and a different approach that might be considered, other than that which underscores Ms Le Couteur’s bill. The government does have some concerns that Ms Le Couteur’s bill would impose a burden on the Department of Territory and Municipal Services, on ACT Policing, on the retail owners of shopping trolleys and ultimately on members of the community who are intent on doing the right thing.
The government has therefore, in consultation with Ms Le Couteur, drafted amendments to her bill that offer an alternative scheme, or solution, that it believes is less onerous but does, essentially, achieve the outcome which Ms Le Couteur has always sought to achieve through her proposals in relation to how to deal with this quite vexed question of abandoned shopping trolleys. So I have to say that the government has been very pleased to work with Ms Le Couteur, and it has been a process that I believe has allowed us today to develop what I hope is a consensus position in relation to this particular issue.
Currently, the problem of abandoned shopping trolleys is handled in the ACT primarily by the retailers who own those abandoned trolleys. Retailers engage contractors to patrol the suburbs around their stores to collect any abandoned trolleys
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