Page 2884 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 June 2010
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acknowledges that Ms Le Couteur’s bill proposes a range of measures that we believe certainly would be useful in dealing with the problem of abandoned trolleys.
But we do believe, with great respect to Ms Le Couteur—I acknowledge the work and her interest in this subject; it is something which she has raised with me on many occasions—that as we look through the bill there are some complexities that have not been dealt with as fully as we believe they might be. There are some unanswered questions that I think it would be appropriate for us to give further consideration to.
They relate to issues around whether or not the collection system and the penalties proposed will actually be effective and about whether or not there are perhaps some other ways of either adding to or enhancing the scheme that Ms Le Couteur and the Greens propose. My office has been in discussion with Ms Le Couteur’s office. We have developed a number of proposed amendments which we have provided to Ms Le Couteur and to her office.
They are proposals that would, for example, remove what we believe to be a gap in the bill. It creates an offence of leaving a trolley in a public place but, of course, this is where these things and legislation become complex. It is not enough just to have a penalty that applies to public places. It would be just as easy for somebody that was aware of the law, accepting that anybody would be, just to leave it in a private place, to leave it in somebody’s front yard. Then the offence provision in the bill is not attracted. This simply undermines all that Ms Le Couteur is trying to achieve.
We believe that there are changes of that order required to adjust some of the gaps that appear to us as we look at the bill. So we have provided a number of proposed amendments in relation to not requiring that each trolley has a unique identifying number. We think that probably would be particularly onerous to ask a retailer to have a notice or a tag on every single shopping trolley that gives it a number so that it is identifiable in that way.
We also propose changes that would allow a suburb-wide collection of abandoned trolleys after due notice is given to retailers. As it stands in the structure that Ms Le Couteur and the Greens have put forward, their scheme would require business and the government, we believe, to expend considerable resources on each and every trolley that loses its way. It requires businesses to mark every trolley and officers to visit an abandoned trolley on at least three occasions prior to its removal.
If one thinks around some of the implications of that, we believe that really in a fair and workable scheme we would be better to try and ameliorate them. Having said all that, the summary of the government’s position is that we support Ms Le Couteur’s intent and, indeed, we share the desire to do something about shopping trolleys.
We have proposed a number of amendments. We look forward to further discussion and refinement of those with members of the Assembly. We do hope that through that engagement—perhaps Ms Le Couteur might actually deal with this at some stage—there might be some benefit and purpose in a public process or a more public process as we conclude legislation.
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