Page 4149 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 22 October 2019
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enforcing this offence will be challenging, given the other challenges which appear to be the case with enforcing any sort of building regulations. One can but hope.
Another positive step forward is articulating the level of littering or dumping so that there is a different offence depending on the type and volume of the litter and the waste. That seems a reasonable idea.
Another thing which actually seems like a significant positive is the introduction of a vehicle-related offence, which means that if a person, or in fact just a vehicle, is captured on camera or witnessed dumping, then the owner of the vehicle can be fined. I think this is a very common-sense approach. I do not know what level of surveillance people are likely to have but I would have thought in general that it would be much more likely that you would be able to identify the vehicle that did significant dumping rather than the human being who may have taken part in this.
I am hopeful that this will lead to people, particularly serial illegal dumpers, actually being found, more infringements and warnings being issued to these people and a change of behaviours. We are all aware of places in the suburbs that are a bit out of Canberra and that have become semi-official, illegal dumping areas, and hopefully the introduction of the vehicle-related offence will mean that the ACT government is in a position to monitor these and actually stop them happening.
The other thing that I think is really positive is responding to hoarding using a mental health more than a criminal or land management framework, because clearly hoarding is a mental health issue. It is a bit bizarre really to see it in a litter act, and I think that in some ways—given the various issues with hoarding, as I guess highlighted by the fact there is another hoarding-related bill before the Assembly from Mr Coe—it would make sense to have an integrated bill about hoarding rather than tack it onto other bits of litter. But that is just how it has happened.
The positive measures in the Litter Bill will not be effective on their own. Enforcement needs to be combined with education, and I am very pleased to hear that Minister Steel plans to include an education package.
However, the Greens have concerns about this bill, and we are seeking to amend it. I have, however, been told that no-one is going to in fact support my amendments; so I will not move all the amendments put forward. But I will be moving some of them.
The first area that I have been seeking to amend is fines. Firstly, we have problems with the basic increase in fines for littering and, secondly, with the introduction of a new offence of aggravated littering, complete with a $500 fine for littering objects that are prescribed by regulation, and an associated fivefold increase in the maximum number of penalty units that can be applied to that offence. I do not believe for one minute that the massive increase in fines for littering and the inclusion of a new category of littering, aggravated littering, will drive any behavioural change from the people whose unlawful actions it seeks to influence or punish.
In his tabling speech for this bill Minister Steel called these fines effective. Certainly some people do sometimes make rational decisions about their behaviour. We earlier
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