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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Tuesday, 3 August 2004) . . Page.. 3365 ..

introduced in 2002 has resulted in a 90 per cent reduction in the use of plastic bags. The debate continues about how we may address this issue.

It is commonly quoted that cigarette butts are more than 20 per cent of the litter stream. Clearly a lot more could be done to encourage smokers to responsibly dispose of butts. Additionally, manufacturers of cigarettes could also produce filters that biodegrade. I will speak to my amendments when we get to the detail stage.

MS DUNDAS (5.02): The democrats are pleased to add their support to this bill to bring our litter laws up to date and impose some tough penalties on litter in the ACT. Mountains of research has been done on the effects of litter in our natural eco-system. It ends up in our creeks and waterways, and creates dangers for flora, fauna and humans alike.

All Canberrans should have the right to a clean and protected environment. Yet littering causes significant problems as well as being an eyesore. Litter can enter the food chain of our native animals and have devastating effects, and the release of non bio-degradable products like plastic bags cause problems for generations. Efforts such as Cleanup Australia Day remove phenomenal amounts of rubbish from our streets, waterways and parks, and that includes the work that the Department of Urban Services does regularly in attempting to keep our suburbs clean.

Whilst the Democrats generally recognise that increasing fines and penalties has no net effect on the causes of illegal behaviour, we do not believe that excessive fines and the possibility of jail time for failure to pay those fines deals responsibly with the core issue.

However, because of the damaging impact littering has on our environment, we are supportive of these new punitive measures on littering. In particular, we need to have a strong disincentive to the illegal dumping of commercial waste. The disposal of rubbish is not an area where businesses should be able to take short cuts to save costs. We all have a stake in the environment, and it is up to everyone to see it protected.

It is good that we are having this debate. But to make this bill most effective, we need to see a significant increase in the government’s commitment to not only the no-waste program but also litter removal. The “No waste by 2010” is very commendable program, but there appears to have been little new action coming through to see that the ACT meets this target. We seem to have a half-hearted commitment to implementing strategies to reach no waste by 2010. However, perhaps with this bill being passed, we will see a turn around in action.

If people are going to be faced with increased penalties for littering, there also needs to be an increase in the removal of litter. In the next budget I look forward to seeing the extra revenue created from this bill—from more people going to the tip—being put towards better effort in cleaning up Canberra. It is interesting to note that the Auditor-General’s report put forward today indicates that there are problems in how we are judging the amount of waste that is going to landfill and how the no waste program is operating. There appears to be a need to re-focus our efforts in that area.

I note that there are amendments circulated and I will discuss them more in the detail stage.

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