Page 4165 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 22 October 2019
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The most positive thing you can say about this legislation is that it is unlikely to ever be implemented because, as both Ms Lawder and I said earlier today, the existing fines have not been enforced in the past. I am very hopeful that these will not be enforced in the future and that the ACT government rangers will continue to take the approach they have of basically warning and educating. I do not see the point of these. They are just making ways to make it possible for us to penalise the vulnerable people in Canberra. I wholeheartedly urge the Assembly to vote for my amendment, but I do appreciate that you have already made up your minds in not voting for the earlier consequential ones.
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee—Minister for City Services, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Recycling and Waste Reduction, Minister for Roads and Active Travel and Minister for Transport) (4.54): Ms Le Couteur’s amendment here would remove the offence of aggravated littering from the list of offences to which an incidental vehicle offence would apply.
An incidental vehicle offence is a key tool in enforcing the Litter Act. It enables a person to be identified by their vehicle registration details where an offence is committed in close proximity to their vehicle, either before entering or after exiting. This provision has been included to enable authorised officers to identify offenders and issue infringement notices in the case where someone refuses to give their name and address or where it is not possible to approach them before they drive off. Cigarette butts are a very common item that is littered from vehicles, either just before entering a vehicle or out the window.
If aggravated littering is removed as an incidental vehicle offence, it will limit how the Litter Act is enforced. We take the view that littering of cigarettes and cigarette butts, matches and syringes is a specific item that needs to be identified as an aggravated offence. These are items which pose a risk both to the environment and to the community.
It is not just in bushland where these items, and the depositing of these items in an inappropriate way, cause a risk to the community; it is also in the city. We live in a bush capital. There is bushland all around us, and when this type of material is littered it really does cause a problem. We have seen some recent instances of that. Thirteen per cent of fires lit in the ACT have been in relation to cigarette butts. So there is a real risk there, and with a hotter and drier climate we need to send a strong message to the community that this is not okay.
I really do hope that the compliance team will be out there issuing infringements, because we have stepped up enforcement, using the compliance targeting team. They are using things like CCTV. I was just walking on Sulwood Drive near my home recently and spotted a camera that was monitoring an illegal dumping hotspot. So these cameras are being used to identify people, and fines—or warnings if appropriate—will be issued to those people to deter this behaviour from occurring in the future.
We want to make sure that we are living in a safe community. We are a community that is at risk of bushfire, particularly during the summer, and we need to send a
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