Page 536 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 February 2020
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that not everyone that is dumping their goods next to a charity bin necessarily has bad intentions at heart. Often these people are trying to do a good thing—they are seeking to donate their goods to charity. Unfortunately, however, if they were more informed they might make a better decision about what to do with those goods. Put simply, those goods often just end up in the tip. I do not want to entirely castigate those that have been leaving their goods next to bins, but I would encourage them to change their behaviour.
In reading through the motion, and as I listened to Ms Lawder, there was one point in particular that stood out to me, and that was (1)(f). Access Canberra does provide a user-friendly and accessible interface for people to make complaints about issues in their local area. To be frank—and I use fix my street frequently, as I think most members in this place do—I find the interface helpful. I find it easy to use and I have not yet failed to log something on the website.
There should also be an onus on residents to take personal ownership in dealing with household waste and to make sure that they deal with it in a responsible manner. A RiotACT article published in December last year highlighted illegal dumping next to charity bins in Gungahlin. The residents interviewed pointed out that the items that had been dumped were rarely things that were broken or beyond repair. On the contrary, items such as clothes and kids’ toys were often in good condition and could be easily repurposed.
I would like to put on the record my thanks to Cecilia and Greg Marshall, both quoted in the article, for their community advocacy on this issue. Having spoken to them, I know just how passionate they are about Gungahlin. They called for residents to take more pride in their local area and for local residents to stop being “lazy”. On that I wholeheartedly agree. In this way, initiatives such as Buy Nothing groups on Facebook have been set up by concerned residents with the intent of turning potential litter into a way to reduce rapid consumerism, by allowing community members to donate goods they no longer want to others within their suburb.
The current systems of waste management are robust and holistic. They represent best practice measures and they are broadly in line with community expectations. That is not to say that we can never do better and that we cannot possibly find new ways to better address this problem. We should always be open to new ideas; it is just that we are doing a pretty good job.
Our current policies work to create a culture where residents understand that it is their responsibility to deal with their household waste in a sensible manner. The ACT government’s key proactive improvements to our system of waste and litter management assist in both deterring littering in the first place and streamlining the clean-up of littering where it does occur. The current balanced and proportionate enforcement framework is well on its way to improving the overall appearance and safety of our open spaces, allowing Canberrans to manage their own household waste in a proactive and environmentally friendly way.
MS ORR (Yerrabi—Minister for Community Services and Facilities, Minister for Disability, Minister for Employment and Workplace Safety and Minister for
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