Please note: This is an extract from Hansard only. Hansard extracts are reproduced with permission from the Parliament of Tasmania.


LITTER BILL 2007 (No. 12)

Second Reading


[3.54 p.m.]


Ms WRIEDT (Franklin - Minister for Environment - 2R) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I move -


That the bill be now read the second time.


The purpose of this bill is to replace the current Litter Act 1973 with an entirely new act for the control of litter. Litter is a pervasive problem in our modern world. It spoils the visual amenity of our urban and natural environments and can have adverse ecological effects on our waterways, bushland and animals. It is now time to take action to prevent and control littering more effectively. As well as improving and protecting our environment, we need to ensure that littering does not detract from our reputation as 'clean and green' and from the attractiveness of our tourism destinations. This bill aims to apply new, more effective approaches to our littering problems. Several of these approaches are modelled on measures which have proven to be effective in other Australian jurisdictions.


The measures in the bill were developed during detailed consultation with government agencies and local government councils which will enforce the new legislation; with stakeholder groups concerned about littering or operating relevant industries; and with the public. A range of options for new legislation was included in an issues and options paper released for public comment in 2004.


The bill approaches litter control in several ways. Litter is defined widely. It includes objects like discarded food containers and papers, as well as dumped bags of garbage, household items, garden waste and building material. The offence of depositing litter is intended to cover the many ways litter can enter the environment. It will be an offence to deliberately discard litter. It will also be an offence for a person to allow litter to escape from a place, or for it to be placed in such a way that it is likely to escape. It is no longer acceptable for materials to be stored or transported insecurely or for rubbish bins and skips to be overloaded.


Be assured that these new measures will be applied in a reasonable manner. It is not intended to penalise people who deposit litter accidentally and take reasonable steps to retrieve it, nor will the bill interfere with owners and occupiers placing litter on their private land, provided they prevent it escaping elsewhere.


The service of infringement notices for littering offences will be the major way the new act will be enforced. Offences can also be prosecuted in court. Monetary penalties for littering offences will increase. This is an important disincentive against littering and will bring Tasmania in line with penalties in other Australian jurisdictions. The bill provides for three levels of penalties depending on the amount littered, so that the penalty increases with the seriousness of the offence. Infringement penalties will be set in regulations and are expected to range from 1 to 5 penalty units. Maximum court penalties are set in the bill and will be 2, 20 and 50 penalty units respectively for the three levels of offence. A single, small item - such as a cigarette butt or bus ticket - will attract the lowest penalty. This offence is aimed at cigarette butt littering in particular. Many people do not perceive cigarette butts as litter; however, cigarette butts now comprise approximately 47 per cent of items littered in Tasmania and the chemicals contained in them can have adverse environmental impacts when leached into the ground or washed into waterways.


Deposit of litter less than 55 litres in volume will be penalised at the second level. Fifty-five litres is the volume of the standard green garbage bag purchased at supermarkets and has been chosen as an easily recognised measure. If the litter deposited is greater than 55 litres in volume, it will be penalised at the highest level. This highest penalty is especially aimed at dumping of litter in vacant lots, parks and bushland.


Some specific littering offences are created in the bill to address known littering problems. It will be an offence to deposit household or commercial rubbish in a public litter bin or receptacle, unless it is clearly marked for that purpose. Controls are placed on the delivery of unsolicited documents, such as advertising material, to prevent this material becoming litter. Unsolicited documents, such as advertising material, must be placed in a secure place at premises, cannot be placed on vehicle windscreens and can only be posted on structures with the consent of the owner or occupier. Persons responsible for producing and distributing such material will have a duty to ensure it is delivered in accordance with the legislation.


Littering along roads and in car parks has become a persistent problem. Indeed, roads and car parks are the most littered sites in the State. Litter in these areas is unsightly and its removal is a costly expenditure of public money. Littering cigarette butts from motor vehicles can also lead to bushfires, particularly in the very dry conditions that are affecting the State at the moment. Roadside littering is a difficult offence to enforce and discourage, because police and authorised officers can only witness and serve infringement notices on a small proportion of offenders.


The bill addresses roadside littering in two ways. Firstly, a scheme to be known as the Litter Hotline will be established to enable members of the public to report littering offences. Infringement notices can then be served and prosecutions made on the basis of such reports. The hotline will target littering from motor vehicles, as members of the public are in a better position to witness such occurrences. The Litter Hotline will be based on a litter reporting scheme that has operated for several years in Victoria. There will be safeguards against vexatious or incorrect reporting. It will be an offence to provide false or misleading information. Persons making reports must provide their name and address and details of the offence, including the registration number of the vehicle. These details will be checked before infringement notices are issued. It is also proposed that reporting forms require the person who makes a report to agree to attend court, should this be necessary.


Secondly, the registered operators of motor vehicles and trailers will be deemed to have committed littering offences related to their vehicles. This provision is important for the success of the Litter Hotline, as it enables an infringement notice to be served on the registered operator of a reported vehicle. This will not mean that registered operators have to pay penalties if they did not commit the offence. In a similar arrangement to traffic offences, registered operators will be able to complete a statutory declaration if the motor vehicle was being driven by another person, was stolen, or the offence was committed by another person. The infringement notice may then be withdrawn and another notice for the offence served on another person.


Mr Deputy Speaker, the bill is not only about penalising littering. It is intended also to achieve good management of litter, to prevent material becoming litter and to assist councils and other authorities to manage litter in areas for which they are responsible. Persons who commit littering offences may be required to remove the litter. Should a person fail to carry out this work, the relevant council or body may conduct the work and seek reimbursement of the reasonable costs of the work.


The bill provides for the issue of litter abatement notices. These are intended to be flexible tools tailored to address specific littering problems. They can be used in a wide range of situations and can be issued to persons responsible for managing an area, as well as to persons who deposit litter. For instance, a litter abatement notice might require the removal of litter. It might require a person conducting an activity or enterprise from which litter is escaping to manage that litter better. Abatement notices will be of particular use where the person or persons responsible for depositing the litter cannot be determined. In commercial or residential complexes with multiple owners or tenants, there may be problems with litter escaping from common areas or rubbish skips. The overall owner or manager of the complex could be issued with an abatement notice requiring action to resolve the problem - for instance, covering of rubbish containers or provision of more containers. Abatement notices are intended to be used in a reasona ble way and will be subject to an appeal to the Administrative Appeals Division of the Magistrates Court.


The new legislation will be enforced by authorised officers appointed from councils or from government agencies. Police officers will automatically become authorised officers under the new act. Subject to reasonable conditions, authorised officers will have adequate powers to enter places and obtain information and evidence in the course of administering or enforcing the act.


Finally, the bill enables revenue gained from certain litter penalties and fines to be put back into litter management and education. The bill creates a Litter Management Fund into which litter penalty and fine moneys, except where matters are dealt with by councils, will be paid instead of into the Consolidated Fund. Moneys in the fund are to be used for operating the Litter Hotline and purposes related to the act, such as litter education. Moneys from penalties imposed and actions brought by councils will be paid to the relevant council, as is the case under the current Litter Act.


In conclusion, this bill will introduce more effective and progressive litter control to Tasmania. It will also assist in better management of litter problems and sources of litter. Overall, it will make an important contribution towards the protection of Tasmania’s lifestyle, environmental quality and the attractiveness of our communities and tourism destinations. Mr Deputy Speaker, I commend the bill to the House.

[4.03 p.m.]


Mr WILL HODGMAN (Franklin - Leader of the Opposition) - The Opposition will support this legislation which deals with a very serious environmental issue and a terrible community ill. You would like to think that there have been substantive improvements in community awareness in recent years. However, that is clearly not the case. It is a problem that is still all too prevalent. I received a media release issued by the Federal Minister for the Environment, Malcolm Turnbull, on 19 February this year which says:


'The volume of litter across Australia has increased by 7 per cent over the past year according to National Litter Index, part done by the Australian Government. The Keep Australia Beautiful National Litter Index measures the types and amounts of litter across Australia and is based on audits conducted between May and November 2006.'


That says very clearly that across the country the problem is being exacerbated, not resolved, and I suspect that, sadly, that is also the case in Tasmania. I am sure we have all had experiences of seeing people litter. I saw a man throw a cigarette butt out of a car the other day. I followed a car with a trailer that was spilling garden cuttings everywhere. Each day going to and home from work I travel the same route as the minister, and indeed the Greens spokesman on this issue, and I am sure we have all noticed the escalating prevalence of litter along the Southern Outlet. Whilst it is not anywhere near as bad as some other places in the world - I lived in England, for example, and the state of their motorways is a disgrace - we certainly are well behind other countries where littering is considered to be a terrible offence with very serious sanctions applied to offenders and where there is a broad cultural attitude, almost a social more, that treats littering and litterers with complete contempt and disdain. I was recently in Japan and that is an example of a place that is very heavily populated but the cities I visited were extraordinarily clean.


Ms Wriedt - Spotless.


Mr WILL HODGMAN - Yes, and you wonder how it is achievable but I think there is an ingrained culture in the people to treat their public places with a respect that sadly does not exist in this country. So whilst I am sure that there has been an improvement and that the vast majority of people are not offenders, from personal observation and seeing the terrible scar it leaves on our landscapes and our road sides, we clearly still have some way to go.


From a personal point of view I am very supportive of legislation that is tough and there are certainly elements of this that appear, on the face of it, to be quite tough and impose fairly considerable powers on authorised persons. I am very supportive of tougher sanctions because if we do need to start changing the culture and people's mindsets on an issue of this type then it is appropriate we do so through legislative sanction.


I am the last person to be proposing more regulation in our society, but this is one area where I have a very clear personal bent against those who perpetrate a very serious environmental offence that degrades both our natural and built environment. It is something we should make every effort to stamp out. On that basis I and other members of the State Opposition are supportive of what the minister is doing in bringing this legislation in, pleasingly after a very extensive process of consultation with all relevant stakeholders. It touches on other areas of public policy and other local government authorities and it is important that they are engaged because there will be ramifications for local councils in how they manage their affairs and resource their personnel and so on.


If we can apply a better degree of community condemnation to this practice and appropriately penalise those who litter we will make people more conscious of the environmental damage littering does. That is a positive thing and if it changes perceptions of what is acceptable then that is good. It staggers me that anyone could throw a cigarette butt or anything on the ground, but clearly it is increasingly prevalent, as the minister said. With small items like cigarette butts and pieces of paper, I think some people do not even contemplate what they are doing and just consider it to be acceptable. But it is mindless, very damaging and needs to be addressed.


The Litter Act obviously provides both a means of enforcing penalties for littering and an opportunity for the management of areas for which councils and other entities are responsible. It is encouraging that the act has been developed in consultation with entities such as councils, stakeholder groups, government entities and the public, because that in itself would increase public awareness and support for what the Government is proposing. The fact that the act differentiates between types of litter and seriousness of a littering offence in three different circumstances is sensible and appropriate. It seems to be workable albeit somewhat novel. You need to establish some parameters here and have a penalty that is appropriate to the circumstances.


We also acknowledge the fact that people have to take greater responsibility for their actions in hauling trailers with garden clippings and so on. I do believe there is a misperception that the littering of garden cuttings and greeneries is not an environmental problem when clearly it is. That is a classic case where people's mindsets need to be changed and perhaps that will come about as a result of this legislation, so that is very important as well. We have some issue with specific provisions and I expect we will be going to Committee to at least touch on some of those and get some clarification from the minister as to how this will be properly enforced, how a person's rights are to be protected and how the specified authorities are to be resourced in order to enforce this legislation with the kind of practical support and assistance that is necessary to make it work effectively, as we would all hope it would.


There are some areas where we would appreciate clarification. I understand that the draft of this bill has been out for some time and in another life it would have been advantageous to have a briefing. I accept responsibility for not coming to you, Minister, and I know there has been a very short time available to us, given that the legislation was tabled this week and we are not sitting anywhere near as much as we should. So I ask, Minister, for your indulgence in allowing us to work through some of the provisions to get some clarification on what is involved here. I do not think I need to go on, other than to flag those issues that are of interest to us, particularly the resourcing and capacity to enforce the legislation by councils and courts, the impact it will have on the judiciary in terms of the workload that may come about as a result of increase prosecutions and reporting, the powers of authorised persons and how persons can become authorised, and general enforcement issues.


Without delaying things any further, we place on record our support for the minister and the Government for bringing in legislation. It will deal with a matter that should be in no way trivialised. I am sure members of this House would not think that for a minute, but in the broader community I think there is an ongoing need for us to impress on people the significance of littering, the damage it does to our environment and how, in this instance certainly, government efforts to address it are worthy and valid and should be supported.


[4.12 p.m.]


Mr McKIM (Franklin) - There is no doubt that litter is a serious environmental problem in Tasmania, in fact right around the world. It is also a blight on the visual amenity of our island State. I have travelled a bit in different countries and I can certainly confirm that compared to some countries, particularly some Asian countries that I have visited, the litter problem in Tasmania is comparatively insignificant, although I want to stress that I believe it is a significant environmental problem. I congratulate the Government and members of the department who have worked hard on the review of the Litter Act. We are now debating a complete replacement of the existing Litter Act 1973. It has been a long time coming, but I do not mention that for any other reason than to say that I do not believe environmental matters receive the funding priority they deserve from this Government. They certainly have not since Labor came to power in 1998. Unfortunately, on this Government's recent record in relation to funding environmental problems and crises, I do not think much is going to change going forward. I refer to matters including, but not limited to, Macquarie Island.


Before I go on to the substantive parts of the bill that I want to address I have a minor gripe, Minister, that this bill was tabled on Tuesday and we are now debating it 48 hours later. It is a relatively substantial bill. It is not an amendment bill; it does replace the existing Litter Act and I personally do not feel that 48 hours is enough time for me to consult on this bill with the various organisations.


Ms Wriedt - It's in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House.


Mr McKIM - It is absolutely in accordance with Standing Orders and I will make no such assertion to the contrary. I am merely making the point that I represent a number of individual constituents and NGOs in this place. I know that a lot of those people and organisations would have submitted to the review of the Litter Act. You know as well as I do, Minister, that just because you submit to review does not mean that your submission is either accepted or acted upon. I would have gratefully accepted the opportunity, given enough time, to ask the opinion of various individuals and NGOs in relation to this bill.


I would categorise it as a minor gripe that there was such a short time to consult on this bill. Litter is something that I certainly receive a lot of correspondence and contact about, and it is something that interests many of my constituents. Members who have followed my career since I was first elected to this place in 2002 would know that I have taken up the issue of waste management as a bit of a personal interest. I travelled to Nova Scotia to see how they manage their waste there; they manage it a lot better than we do here in Tasmania, and I will say some more about that later. I would have appreciated, Minister, the opportunity to consult with a number of individuals, community organisations and non-government organisations.


The debate does, however, give me the opportunity to reflect very briefly on someone who has become, since I was elected in 2002, probably my favourite correspondent in a professional context, and that is Mr Jack Brown from Huonville. Those who spend much time driving around the Huon Highway will probably know Jack by sight but not by name. He is the guy in the orange fluoro vest who spends a large amount of his life picking up litter from the verges down between Huonville and Dover in most instances, although occasionally he has been known to go as far north as Grove. Jack is a regular correspondent, and I very much enjoy his letters. I think it is fair to say he is no fan of the current Government, particularly on the issue of log trucks keeping him awake at night, which is something on which he corresponds with me regularly. I want to place on the record my appreciation of Jack's efforts in keeping the verges clean between Grove and Dover. He does a sterling job and I believe that in some weeks he is out there for the bulk of the day, every day of the week, picking up the litter. I want to place on the record my appreciation, and I am sure the appreciation of all members of this House, of the work that Jack does.


If I have not made it clear, we will be supporting this bill. As far as it goes, I think it is a good bill. I will make a request that we go into Committee because there are a few issues relating to specific clauses that I would not mind exploring.


I often say this when we are debating bills in this Parliament. It is one thing to come into this place and to legislate to create offences; it is another thing entirely as to how you enforce that law out on the ground. Litter is something that I believe that comment particularly pertains to. I will probably explore in Committee the matter of authorised people. I want make it clear that adequate enforcement of the act will actually need a satisfactory level of funding in my view. That is something that I mention in relation to many areas in which we legislate, including loading extra tasks onto the long-suffering Ombudsman's office, which we do on a regular basis. If we are going to create extra work for people, we ought at least to have the decency to adequately fund the organisations of which they are a part. I do not think the current Government has a great record in funding environmental initiatives or, for that matter, in doing enough to protect Tasmania's environment.


Litter is a serious problem and I think that this bill is a great improvement on the current Litter Act. However, to a large degree it addresses the symptoms of littering and not the causes of littering. In my view, and I have said this many times, the single greatest contribution parliaments could make to reducing litter would be introducing container deposit legislation. With the indulgence of the House, I will just quickly explain what I mean. Members would know that South Australia has CDL. The South Australian model was primarily created as a litter reduction device. It works on the pretty sound philosophical basis that if you attach a value to something, people are less likely to chuck it away. In South Australia I think you pay eight cents extra for containers, including soft drink cans, for example, and when you redeem them - in other words, when you hand them back - you get five cents. The three-cent differential is an administrative fee and is not intended to be a profit out of the transaction.


There are many other models I have seen around the world, including Nova Scotia where there is a larger differential. In Nova Scotia it is a 10-cent deposit and you redeem five cents, and that is not an administrative fee. That is actually a fund-raising measure that is quarantined out of consolidated revenue in Nova Scotia. It goes in the form of financial carrots to the Nova Scotian equivalent of Tasmanian municipalities if they can demonstrate adequate landfill management practices. Over there they have the Resource Recovery Fund Board, which was set up by the Parliament, and it administers the funds raised by their container deposit levy and allocates that money out to municipalities which meet agreed targets in relation to landfill management. I am a big fan of container deposit levies. I am well on the record as making it clear that I believe we should introduce a container deposit levy in this State.


Minister, while I am on that subject you will recall the Environment, Resources and Development Committee inquiry into waste management. Subsequent to the report being issued by that committee I asked you, I think in the Launceston sitting last year, whether you intended to introduce any of the recommendations. I think you said that you would ask your department to provide you with a response to the committee's report. I wonder whether you would let me know in your response whether you have received that from the department. I just mention it in passing for my interest; I am not intending to make a song and dance about it.


Other matters that I wanted to raise are the definition of 'litter' in clause 3, the offences which the bill creates in clause 9, and the use of the word 'deposit' in clause 9 in relation to the creation of the offence of littering. I will, Minister, be seeking to explore what 'deposit' actually means in clause 9.


Ms Wriedt - It's defined in the interpretation


Mr McKIM - We will explore that a little bit in clause 3. One of the contexts within which I wanted to explore what 'deposit' actually means is the issue of balloon releases. Balloon releases are, in my understanding, illegal in some other Australian jurisdictions, including New South Wales. My understanding is that in New South Wales the then Premier, Bob Carr, was prevailed upon by a group of schoolchildren to introduce legislation relating to mass balloon releases. I remind members that a similar bill was introduced into this place in 2001 by Ms Putt and was actually debated on 24 April 2002. Ms Putt was prevailed upon by pupils of the Sorell school who belonged to a group called The Planet Protectors. They wrote to her asking for her help to ban balloon releases in Tasmania. This came about as a result of six students of Sorell school going to an environment conference. My word, isn't it great to see young people - and I know the minister will agree as ex-Minister for Education and currently Minister for the Environment - taking responsibility for matters such as this, taking it upon themselves to become involved in public policy-making. Six students from the Sorell school went to an environment conference in Adelaide in 2001. At the conference they met Bethany Henderson, who campaigned against balloon releases in New South Wales. Bethany must have been the person who prevailed upon Bob Carr, because the students of the Sorell school, in writing to Ms Putt, said that they met Bethany Henderson, who made it clear that the New South Wales Government has now passed legislation to stop mass balloon releases. They asked Ms Putt to help them to make it law in Tasmania. Ms Putt to her credit tabled a bill, the Environment Protection (Release of Balloons) Bill 2001, and had it debated in this place.


The bill was voted down by the combined vote of the Labor and Liberal parties, as so many impressive environmental initiatives are. Interestingly, during the second reading the Minister for Primary Industries, Water and Environment, who at the time was David Llewellyn, said - and I quote from the Hansard of 24 April 2002:


'We made an announcement about the fact that there will be a review of the Litter Act and it was intended that we look at this question for implementation within the review of the act. I have to say I believe it to be the appropriate way to deal with the matter and, if there are to be amendments along the lines that the member has presented in this bill, they ought to be incorporated in the Litter Act.'


I ask the minister whether or not this bill is intended to and will in fact cover the release of balloons. Depending on the response, if any, I get from the minister we might explore that matter in the clauses. On a careful reading of some of the clauses it is not clear to me whether this bill applies to the mass releases of balloons. I guess it depends on what we understand to mean 'deposit or 'put' or 'cause'. I will be arguing that the bill does cover mass balloon releases, but we will wait to see how the minister responds.


I think that I have covered the matters I wanted to cover in the second reading. This has been a long time coming but we welcome its arrival in the House. The fact that it has been a long time coming makes the haste with which this matter is being dealt with by this House a little bit difficult to understand. The review process was going on for a long time. I can see puzzlement on Ms Singh's face. I do not think she was in here earlier when I was saying that this is relatively complex legislation which is of a high level of interest to a number of my constituents and non-government organisations, and no doubt hers. I think that 48 hours was not long enough for me to consult on this bill. I had not seen it until it was tabled in the House, which happened on Tuesday, probably about 52 hours ago now. I do not regard two days as anywhere near long enough to consult on this bill to see whether all those people who submitted to the review of the Litter Act were happy with the results of that consultation process. Be that as it may, I find myself here debating it. As the minister pointed out when I raised this in my contribution, there is no contravention of Standing Orders and I certainly acknowledge that.


Ms Singh - Are you supporting it?


Mr McKIM - Yes, I have indicated that we will be supporting it. Ms Singh would know, if she has followed the Greens' strategies in this Parliament, that we always support things even if we think they are a minor improvement. I am not making that allegation in relation to this bill. We will support acts that we do not think go far enough but are still an improvement on the current situation. That has been our regular practice since I have been in this House and it is something that I intend to continue. We are not about being obstructionist in relation to legislation. Of course we will vote against legislation that we think it is a retrograde step and we are proud to do so.


Ms Singh - This is certainly not retrograde.


Mr McKIM - No, and I completely agree with the member's comment.


I have said everything I wanted to say on the second reading. I thank the minister for bringing this bill into the Parliament, and I look forward to exploring in further detail a couple of the matters that I have raised when we deal with the committee stage.

[4.35 p.m.]


Ms SINGH (Denison) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I am also very pleased to rise to support this bill, the Litter Bill 2007, and to put on the record my support for keeping our suburbs, waterways, parks, bushlands and beaches et cetera as clean as possible. Litter is a huge environmental issue, and it is important that people become aware that it is the responsibility of everyone in the community to keep our cities and environment as clean as possible.


It is also about making people feel conscious, as I think some other members in this House have said, about their actions. We still see people occasionally chucking their fish and chip wrappers or cigarette butts onto the ground as though they could not care less, because it is something they have always done. Hopefully, with the introduction of this Litter Bill, it will place some kind of new commitment on those actions. I think by updating measures for control and management of litter, and replacing the existing Litter Act 1973, the State Government is trying to make our environment, our suburbs, waterways and parks et cetera as clean as possible.


One good example of that is Clean up Australia Day, which we celebrate and participate in every year. I was pleased that I had the opportunity this year to launch Clean up Australia Day. As you probably know, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is a day that has become an iconic event with thousands of Australians venturing into their local community to collect tonnes of litter.


Litter is not only unsightly, it has a real impact on our environment, as I am sure all members in this House would agree. While many Tasmanians participate each year in Clean up Australia Day events, litter remains very prevalent in the local environment. Some of the most commonly littered items in Tasmania are cigarette butts, plastic food bags, bottle tops and cigarette packets. There are also many other items, but the prevalence of cigarette butts is one that personally annoys me, perhaps because a lot of people do not see it as litter. They are made of a substance that is very hard to break down and stays in our waters and in our local environment for a very, very long time. It is also very unsightly, so I am very pleased that this Litter Bill picks up on that because cigarette butts are one of the most commonly littered items in our community, as many members would be aware.


Last year I had the opportunity to participate on behalf of the Minister for the Environment in the industry-funded 'Do the Right Thing' campaign, which I think many members in this House will remember. I will not sing the jingle. The 'Do the Right Thing' campaign of the 1970s and 1980s was one of the most successful campaigns in Australian history, which -


Members - Go on - sing for us!


Ms SINGH - (singing) 'Do the right thi-ing', there you go - I have sung it!


Members laughing .


Ms SINGH - That campaign was very successful campaign in the 70s and 80s and it was responsible for a 70 per cent reduction in litter. So while we may laugh at my singing, the singing by the professionals who did the jingle did a very good job, because it went down in the community in a big way. We know of lot of people watch ads on television and the jingles end up drumming their way into our brains sometimes whether we like it or not. This was one that did have a very positive effect on many people in the community. Last November, I joined Jenny Pickles, manager of the Food and Grocery Council, in a new 'Do the Right Thing' advertising campaign which was developed to highlight many of the State's iconic locations while showcasing Tasmanians placing their litter in the bin.


According to the 2004 National Littering Behaviour Study 7, Hobart's rating has been lifted from one of the worst to the equal second-best capital in the country, so that is a campaign that has worked very well. I think that if you look around in Hobart at the moment you will see on a number of rubbish bins the sticker saying 'Do the Right Thing'. That campaign last November was a really good example of a number of groups working together, dedicated organisations putting forward solutions to help reduce litter.


Having said that, cleaning up our environment and ensuring there is no litter is a whole-of-community responsibility. It is not just the responsibility of this act or organisations like the Food and Grocery Council who put efforts into campaigns such as 'Do the Right Thing', it is everybody's responsibility. It comes down to the individual and it is those individuals that do not do the right thing whom we address in this bill today. We recognise that they need to start doing the right thing.


I just wanted to pick up on a couple of things in the bill. One of those is the opportunity for the public to report littering offences. This is a really good opportunity because I know as members of parliament we do get constituents who contact us and say, 'I saw such and such a person hooning in the street in their car' or 'I saw someone committing some kind of incivility in social behaviour', but by the time they call our office the event has passed. It is very hard for us as members to do anything when it is something that has occurred in the past and we do not have the identity of the person.


The actions the public can take to report littering offences in this act as soon as they see them will enable it to be dealt with on the spot, getting an outcome that will be for the benefit of our local environment. I think the minister in her second reading speech has gone through what this bill is all about so I will not go over that, other than to stress my interest and dislike of littering full stop but especially cigarette butt litter which is so common and yet not regarded as importantly as it should be in our local community.


Like other members I have travelled in various countries and some get it right and some are really quite disgraceful. I think that we, as a State, want to be a leading example of getting it right and I think this bill goes quite a way, especially compared to the old 1973 bill, in trying to clean up our local environment and ensure that we are giving a message to future generations and to visitors who come to Tasmania. We welcome visitors who continue to come to Tasmania to do the right thing, and to look after all parts of our environment - bushlands, waterways, beaches, parks, streets and so on. Mr Deputy Speaker, it gives me pleasure to support the Litter Bill.


[4.45 p.m.]


Ms WRIEDT (Franklin - Minister for Tourism, Arts and the Environment) - I thank members for their contributions and their support for this important bill. On reflecting on the comments from the member, I have say it did not occur to me to offer you a briefing on this; perhaps I should have and I apologise for that. Whilst it is quite a weighty bill in one sense, I would like to think it is relatively straightforward. It honestly did not occur to me, so there was certainly no intent to keep you in the dark about it. I thought it was pretty straightforward and hopefully we will demonstrate that as we go into Committee. Normally if it is something that I think will be controversial or complex, I offer a briefing. I would say to any member of this House that if I bring forward any other legislation in future and I have not offered a briefing but you require one, please ask me. We are only too happy to arrange one.


I think the Leader of the Opposition raised the question of what the impact might be on the workload of the judiciary. We would envisage that many of the offences under this act will be dealt with by infringement notices and will not end up within the court system, much as traffic offences are dealt with. Unless something is disputed it would not end up before the courts.


I think it was the Deputy Leader of the Greens who commented that it is good legislation but the proof of the pudding will be how we enforce it. I believe that what has been developed is certainly workable. Some ideas canvassed in the discussion paper we released were clearly not practicable and therefore enforceable. There was one provision in particular which I found interesting, the offence of aggravated littering. I did seek some guidance on this because in Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT they have the offence of aggravated littering. It is littering which could lead to danger or harm. I think some of this stemmed from New South Wales where a few years ago somebody deliberately placed some syringes under some newspapers on Bondi Beach. They were sticking up so that people would step on them and they would deliberately cause harm. It could be that somebody who has a gripe against their neighbour breaks bottles at the end of their driveway.


Mr McKim - Or that goose who let fish oil out of his truck between Dover and Hobart about two months ago, and caused an accident on the Southern Outlet every day of the week.


Ms WRIEDT - Yes, I do remember being caught every day that week.


Mr McKim - So was I.


Ms WRIEDT - It was considered too difficult to prove. How could you determine whether it was intentional aggravated littering? The syringe example is obviously very extreme, but otherwise how do you prove that harm was intended. For example, somebody who has a gripe against their neighbour and decides to grab some bottles and smash them at the end of their driveway in the hope that they then damage their car or walk over them would be picked up under other acts for trying to harm another person's property. The Police Offences Act and the Criminal Code would actually pick up those sorts of offences.


We did look also at higher penalties for littering with lit cigarette butts as opposed to unlit cigarette butts. Once again, that was something that would be very difficult to prove, particularly if you were talking about the Litter Hotline. If somebody travelling in a car reported somebody throwing out a cigarette butt, they could not in that split second work out whether it was lit or unlit. Indeed, if that cigarette butt was lit and started a fire then one could be prosecuted under the Fire Service Act as well.


So we have tried to come up with legislation that is workable. It will be implemented, or enforced, I should say, by a number of people. Tasmania Police officers are automatically authorised persons under this act. Councils will also be able to deem authorised people under the act. This may be something that the Hobart City Council or other councils who have parking inspectors may wish to consider. They may wish to consider making their parking inspectors authorised officers for the purposes of this act because that would mean a very high on-the-ground presence. Those parking officers could then issue on-the-spot infringement notices. Once this legislation passes the Parliament, I will be writing to local councils, particularly those which have parking inspectors, making that very suggestion and urging them to consider it as a possibility. We will also see Parks and Wildlife rangers as authorised officers under this act so that they can deal with offences within national parks.


In terms of enforcement, I think there will be a strong on-the-ground presence right across the State. Combined with the Litter Hotline, I would hope it would act as a significant deterrent to those people who seek to scar our landscape and clean environment with litter.


Some $45 000 from the Living Environment program has been set aside for this, predominantly to set up the Litter Hotline but also to run an education program for the public prior to this act coming into force. I think that will be very important. It has already received a great deal of publicity, not only in Tasmania but also, surprisingly, as far away as the Gold Coast. I had an ABC Radio interview from the Gold Coast this morning. They are interested in the provisions of this act because they do not have anything like it in Queensland. They think it might be useful for them. That money, we anticipate, would be recouped within a couple of years of the Litter Hotline being in operation.


I did anticipate that container deposit legislation might be raised during the course of this debate. Yes, I will be bringing to the House a response on behalf of Government to the matters raised in the Environment, Resources and Development Committee report. Tasmania has been, over a period of time, a strong supporter of a national approach to container deposit legislation and other extended producer responsibility schemes. It was, in fact, through the Environment Protection Heritage Council that the Government supported moves to investigate a range of mechanisms that would enable us to increase the recovery rate. I think the target is about 65 per cent. A second covenant was recently negotiated -


Mr McKim - Hopefully it will lead to better outcomes.


Ms WRIEDT - We certainly share the views of the Boomerang Alliance that for companies to meet their targets for recycling under the first national packaging covenant it really does call for stronger measures and threats of legislation to ensure that those targets in the second covenant are reached.


I think it is only fair to give them an opportunity to reach -


Mr McKim - Some might argue they were given an opportunity in the first covenant, Minister.


Ms WRIEDT - Yes, it is a little bit like the plastic bags issue. It is one of those issues we will be discussing. We have an EPHC meeting in June and that is back on the agenda again. I would argue that the retailers have been given a fairly significant time frame and opportunity to reduce the use of plastic bags. I have not seen anything too innovative coming from the retailers, other than selling bags at a $1 a pop.


Mr McKim - It might be nearly time for a levy or a ban, Minister. What do you think?


Ms WRIEDT - We will be having a ban - that has been nationally agreed. The question is how to get there. We want a national levy.


Mr McKim - We could just ban them.


Ms WRIEDT - There will be a ban coming into place as of - I always get this date wrong - 1st January 2009.


Mr McKim - A legislative ban?


Ms WRIEDT - Yes, that is the agreement of all. That decision was confirmed by my predecessor two to three years ago. It has been on the agenda for a long time. In the year that I have held the portfolio, in the two EPHC meetings that I have been to this has been on the agenda and we have confirmed and reconfirmed our commitment to that all around the country. I continue to find it frustrating that no suitable alternatives have been found.


Mr McKim - To the bags?


Ms WRIEDT - To the bags. There does not seem to be anything as yet that is a workable, practical alternative as far as members of the public are concerned. So it will be interesting to see the way the discussions go and maybe, given that this is the Federal election year, this is the time for us to up the ante in relation to a national levy. I do not want to see members of the public financially penalised at point of sale, as in Victoria where they pay about 19 cents a bag extra. They put in that specific legislation. I would rather see a national levy where it is the retailers who have to pay, not the consumers, and that acts as a disincentive.


Mr McKim - A consumer levy worked well in Ireland. But, Minister, you haven't been dissuaded by the Productivity Commission's report from last year, I hope.


Ms WRIEDT - From the work that the EPHC commissioned - and I cannot remember off the top of my head the name of the group that did the work - the thing that struck me about it was that it was a very narrow approach, just looking at the economic issues as far as the retail industry was concerned. It was not looking at the social and environmental issues. I think that was because they found it much more difficult to deal with. I will watch that with interest, because I do want to see some movement on that and it has been a very frustrating debate so far.


Mr McKim - Yes, for many of us.


Ms WRIEDT - What worries me about it is that if you have a levy - and we continue to differ on this - I continue to get advice that you cannot have a State-imposed levy on plastic bags in any event.


Mr McKim - But you can have a State CDL and the committee did get advice from the Solicitor-General about that.


Ms WRIEDT - Yes, but I am advised that you cannot have a specific levy on plastic bags. In any event, I would not like to see a levy that penalises the consumer, because it is the low-income earners who will then be penalised. They may not be prepared to make an investment in $15 or $20 worth of calico bags or alternative types of bags, and then every time they do their shopping they end up paying an extra couple of dollars because of a levy.


So there are some difficulties with that and I do not think that the work that has been done to date has addressed those issues adequately. It appears there is no proper alternative. I did have a bag sent to me recently, and we had seen one last year at EPHC, which was made from potato starch. It feels weird, a little like latex, and they break down in water. We tried it in the office. You put them into water and they break down, they go through a slimy stage, which is not very appealing, a bit like egg-whites, and you are left with a murky soup when it is put in hot water. I do not know what happens if you are carrying something in those bags and it leaks or it rains. If you are in a tropical environment and it is warm rain you are probably in big trouble. I do not know that that area has been properly developed anywhere in the world in terms of low-cost alternatives.


The EPHC is still looking at a range of measures in relation to container deposit legislation, including a national CDL scheme. During the second covenant if they are unsuccessful in reaching the targets by what is anticipated as a mid-term review - and I think that is next year - then we will have some mechanisms with which to act. We do need to exercise a little caution. I know South Australia is held up all the time as the model, being the only other State that has CDL, but we need to consider the impacts that CDL would have on kerbside recycling. Kerbside recycling came in after CDL in South Australia, but you would be doing the reverse in other States. You would not want to jeopardise a very good kerbside recycling system if CDL came in. There is some debate about the economics of it and whether they could be -


Mr McKim - Mostly industry-led, I would have to say, Minister.


Ms WRIEDT - There is that view of it as well. What would the impact be on the public? Would they disregard their kerbside recycling altogether? I do not know that we have adequately investigated that, but these are the sorts of things that could hopefully be looked at if we get a national approach to this, and will be looked at in the work the EPHC is doing. I am looking forward to that work progressing because we need to look at the best option for Tasmania. It is fairly complex. That was one of the issues raised in that report and I will bring in a response on behalf of the Government to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee report.


Whilst there is not a specific clause in the bill on balloon releases, I believe that this bill would cover large-scale balloon releases. If you look at some of the definitions that we mentioned earlier about depositing litter, it does use the word 'blows' or 'descends'. We do not have 'ascends'; it can 'descend' or 'blow', but it would blow upwards.


Mr McKim - What goes up must come down.


Ms WRIEDT - Exactly. I cannot recall in recent years there being any large-scale balloon releases in Tasmania. I think it is less a part of our culture than in other States. I know Sydney used to release balloons for everything, but it is not something that has been a large part of festivals in Tasmania. My understanding is that in terms of the litter that is being picked up balloons are really not figuring as a major item. But they would be picked up in this.


I will just give you one example and you could argue whether it is appropriate or not because the end result is the same, but somebody towards the end of last year who was close to my family passed away. Just before he did my children went in to visit him in hospital, and they took him a couple of balloons because he was not able to be at my daughter's birthday party. When he passed away those balloons - there were only two of them - were still in his hospital room. They were inflated, and it was the request of his wife that we take them to his funeral and then to the cemetery, and then my children cut the string of the balloons. It was kind of symbolic for them as young children, and part of the funeral service.


I have to say, there are probably these very small exceptions. We could not do it with doves - it would not have been the same, but it was all to do with that. I guess there are probably one or two, and they are certainly not large-scale balloon releases. Had this act been in force we would have put that up as a defence if there had been any complaint in relation to it.


Perhaps I should have asked a question by way of interjection during the contribution by the member for Franklin, Mr McKim. You did say that perhaps you would make this act go further. I think you intimated that perhaps there were ways it could go further. I am genuinely interested in your views on how you would envisage it could go further. Apart from those few situations such as aggravated littering and higher penalties for lit cigarette butts that I have mentioned, I am not sure how we could really take it much further, but I would certainly be interested in your views on that.


No doubt we will have some further discussions during the committee stage. I just echo the comments of my colleague, the member for Denison, Ms Singh, in saying that litter is everybody's responsibility. I think one of the things we do very well in our schools is teach children from a very early age, perhaps when they are within the child-care sector, that you do not litter. Schools and child-care centres enforce that very well. While some children will litter in schools, the schools are very good at enforcing children picking up and that sort of stuff up. I know it is certainly enforced in the school my children attend, and schools are very clean and tidy places.


Unfortunately, something happens when people get older and they develop a careless attitude about the communities in which they live and they litter. Quite frankly, I would not care less if we did not raise any money from infringement notices and penalties applied under this act, because if we did not raise any money it would mean that nobody was littering, and that would be great.


The reality is there will always be some people within the community who will have a careless attitude about their community and the environment in which they live, with the resulting potential harm not only to the environment but also to safety. In fact, somebody was relaying a story to me just the other day about being on a motorbike, travelling at high speed, following a mini-van, and a lot of fast-food wrappers were thrown out of the windows of the van as it went further up the highway and one of those actually flew onto the motor cyclist's helmet. He was travelling at 100 kilometres an hour, temporarily blinded by a fast-food wrapper attached to the motorcycle helmet. Now that could have ended up in a very serious accident, and I think those are the sorts of things that are perhaps overlooked in this debate about the harm that can result from seemingly small things.


I think cigarette butts are the case in point, particularly in high fire season, and that is why I am confident that the litter hotline will actually be used. I think that the culture in Tasmania will show that if you give Tasmanians an opportunity to tell authorities when something illegal is occurring they will take that opportunity.


In fact the Mayor of Glenorchy, Adriana Taylor, who spoke about the legislation the other day after I had tabled it indicated that at the moment people ring up councils and make complaints about other people littering. Councils have not had the power to do anything about it so in fact I guess there have been pseudo-litter hotlines set up in councils right around the State but they have been powerless to act. Indeed very few people have been issued with infringement notices in relation to litter under the act that we are seeking to replace now.


Every time I have done an interview on this the one question that journalists have asked is whether I think anyone is actually going to use the Litter Hotline. There are provisions in this to safeguard against vexatious complaints so that if somebody has a serious case of road rage and wants to get back at you they can take down your registration number and ring up and say that you tossed something out of your car window but they need to be prepared to follow that up by a written statement.


If you are following a car and you see somebody littering you would take their registration number. You then have two options. You can ring the Litter Hotline and that number will actually go through to a Service Tasmania number. They will send you out a form or refer you to the web site. You will be able to fill that in electronically or you will get it manually if you do not have that sort of technology available to you. You then have to make a signed statement about what you witnessed. You also have to be prepared to front up to court if the matter goes before court.


So if it is disputed by the operator of the vehicle then you have to be prepared to go to court, swear under oath about what you saw. If someone has road rage and they are prepared to go to that extent then they risk being fined or even jailed for, I think it is called, false swearing. Can you be jailed for false swearing? If they end up in court, it is called false swearing under the act as I understand it.


Mr Will Hodgman - Why didn't you require the statement to be sworn?


Ms WRIEDT - It will be a sworn statement, a statutory declaration.


Mr McKim - It is just a written statement, a signed written report.


Ms WRIEDT - I will get some further advice as we go into Committee on that because my understanding is that it is a sworn statement. We have modelled this on the Victorian system. We have those safeguards in place to prevent anyone trying to take advantage of this and getting revenge on their neighbour or someone else that they are perhaps in dispute with and we do not want that to occur.


We only want genuine people to be affected by this. Hopefully that has answered some of the queries. We will go into Committee and, you never know, we might even be able to finish this this evening, which would be terrific, so that the upper House can consider it. If not I am happy to continue this at a later date.

Bill read the second time.