Local Nuisance and Litter Control (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 22 February 2024.)

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (12:42): I rise to speak on the Local Nuisance and Litter Control (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2024.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are not the lead speaker?

Mr BATTY: No, I am not. This bill makes various amendments to the Local Nuisance and Litter Control Act 2016 and also makes a number of amendments to the Liquor Licensing Act 1997. It has been quite a long lead-up to this bill being introduced into this house. It follows a review that was commenced by the former Liberal government into the operation of the Local Nuisance and Litter Control Act; indeed, I think it was commenced by the now Leader of the Opposition in his capacity then as the Minister for the Environment to seek some feedback.

He released a discussion paper in 2019 about the operation of the act and to respond to some of the issues that had been raised with him at that time and also with the Environment Protection Authority about the operation and administration of the act since its commencement in 2017, and also to determine the scope of any future reforms.

I think it is fair to say there have been a number of issues that have been raised about the operation of the act. Even in my short time as a local member of parliament, you often rely on and refer to this act in dealing with a whole range of constituent inquiries and issues, whether they relate to litter in our local community or nuisances in our local community. It can often be a really effective and important tool to solve, resolve and prevent issues arising in the community.

I also think that whenever we are legislating on these sorts of issues we do need to be aware of the burden it places on businesses, particularly small businesses, and others in the community. While these can be really effective tools to try to solve issues in the community, sometimes I think we see vexatious claims being made under these sorts of acts. We always need to be a little bit wary that the complainant does not become a nuisance themselves to business, and particularly small business.

I think on this side of the house we are always very conscious and careful about red tape on small businesses, and we have seen numerous examples of that in recent times. As recently as a few weeks ago, we heard about the butcher who could not sell Christmas ham because they could not get their food accreditation licence in time from a government authority. I think we all accept the need for really important and strong and stringent food regulations, but when they are just placing an undue burden on businesses and it takes a year to get a licence in practice then that is really not helping anyone.

In a similar example a few months earlier, we saw the AHA coming out and talking about new training regulations which required their chefs to take a couple of hours out of a busy lunch service to go and upload videos of themselves washing their hands. These are experienced chefs being forced to do this. Again, it is a pretty blunt instrument that does not really help anyone.

We are very, very aware of the thousands of small businesses right across South Australia that are burdened with filling out forms, with trying to get their heads around new industrial relations reforms, and with trying to get their heads around new ESG requirements, all things that take them away from whatever it is that they do best, which is, of course, running their business. Whenever we are legislating in this place, we want to be really conscious that we are not strangling small business with red tape, that we are unleashing them from red tape and letting them get on with what it is they do best.

I think we always ought to remember when we see examples of red tape in our statute books, or more often in our regulations, that at some time they were put there by some well-intended decision-maker to try to cure what they viewed as some sort of evil at that time, but I think what we see time and time again is it then entering the statute books or regulations and being forgotten or duplicated, or simply the practical implementation of it means it is placing an undue and unreasonable burden on small businesses. I think that is very important context as we consider any legislation that is putting a bit more red tape, potentially, or removing red tape on small businesses.

The amendment bill before the house does include a number of reforms across aspects of the act that were considered as part of the review process commenced by the former Liberal government. It covers a number of areas. One of them is a more efficient process for the assessment and issuing of exemptions. We see this in clause 6 of this bill, which introduces an ability for councils to waive the requirement to provide a site nuisance plan in certain circumstances. This is an example of actually removing a bit of red tape from businesses and people in our community and letting them get on with what it is they need to do.

Importantly, it only applies where the adverse effects from the activity are not reasonably able to be avoided and are of a limited nature. These are important protections for the community from whatever it is that people are proposing to do in that respect, striking the right balance rather than just applying a tick box exercise of a site nuisance plan in circumstances where it really might not, and ought not, apply.

Secondly, we see throughout the whole bill differing expiation amounts for bodies corporate and natural persons, to achieve greater deterrence for businesses that might otherwise absorb expiation fees into their costs of doing business. I am told that this is actually a reform that was proposed by and supported by the Small Business Commissioner. That might seem a little counterintuitive at first, but I am told that, more often than not, it is big businesses that are causing the nuisance to small businesses and then simply absorbing that penalty, that expiation cost, into their cost of doing business.

The obvious example is, perhaps, a big construction company that might be undertaking some work out the front of a strip of shops full of small businesses or cafes and restaurants, ignoring the nuisance act and wearing the penalty, wearing the expiation fee, but at a great loss to the small business, whether it be a restaurant or a retail shop, on that street. Again, I think this is another sensible reform that is actually helping small business in South Australia, with the penalties changing to better reflect and better deter the types of offences that this bill is trying to avoid.

Thirdly, we see the inclusion of an offence in clause 7 regarding the installation of an air conditioner or a light in a place where it causes a local nuisance. This is an example where it is obvious what sort of evil we are trying to cure. No-one wants to be living next door to a very noisy air conditioner or a light shining through their window, but perhaps this is another example where we ought be cautious of the obligations we are placing on the installers of those devices—in this case, probably a small business owner who might not be alive to what we are here legislating today, and might find themselves now shackled with this extra obligation and potentially exposing themselves to extra liability as well. So we might explore, in due course, how that clause might work in practice and make sure there are appropriate protections there and education, perhaps, for small business owners installing an air conditioner or a light who are just trying to get on with their business.

Also in this bill, in clause 17, we see clarification regarding the disposal by councils of illegally dumped items and the application of the Unclaimed Goods Act 1987. In clause 9, we see the addition of a general duty for business owners to prevent or minimise litter resulting from their business, including stormwater management systems. We see improved cost recovery mechanisms for local government, and in schedule 1 we see those amendments that I mentioned to the Liquor Licensing Act and a better delineation between the responsibilities of councils on the one hand, and the Liquor and Gambling Commissioner on the other, when we are regulating nuisance that might be occurring on licensed premises.

Also—and perhaps most interestingly—in this bill, we see a number of provisions to try to improve the management and collection of abandoned shopping trolleys. I know this is a very big issue and a big problem in many of our local communities. I cannot step outside my own electorate office and walk around the streets without finding quite a number of abandoned shopping trolleys from Burnside Village. This does cause a real nuisance to residents living in that local community, as well as those who want to visit the shops. At worst, these trolleys littering our streets can cause a hazard to pedestrians, as well as a traffic hazard, perhaps, depending on where they are left. If not a hazard it is pretty ugly and destroys the visual amenity of our suburbs as well.

We see it right around, and certainly in my own community, whether that be in suburbs like Glenside and Toorak Gardens as well as suburbs surrounding the Burnside Village Coles, whether it be suburbs like Marryatville and Heathpool that surround the Marryatville supermarket and Woolworths there, or suburbs like Frewville, Glenunga or Eastwood, where I live, that surround the world's best supermarket, the Frewville Foodland. Quite often it is an issue raised with me by my own constituents in correspondence as well as at street-corner meetings in those local areas; they are really concerned about these abandoned shopping trolleys.

More often than not, when the issue is raised with me we are able to resolve it pretty quickly. We can call the supermarket or we can call the council, and in nearly every circumstance the trolley will be collected, because they are an asset for the supermarket, of course; they do not want people running off with their trolleys and leaving them on the street. It is an asset for the supermarket and it is worth something to them, so they will come and get it. So more often than not we can fix that problem.

However, it is not always the case, and I note some examples right across the state. There was one from the City of Marion in 2018 that reported collecting more than 230 shopping trolleys around the Westfield Marion and Castle Plaza shopping centres over just a four-day period. Another example comes from Port Augusta, again in 2018, when the local council there, alongside the major retailers, actually employed divers to survey an accumulation of shopping trolleys that had been dumped at the town wharf. When they did so they collected over 500 trolleys and removed them at a cost of $15,000.

It is certainly a problem that we recognise and want to try to solve. There are already provisions in the act that prohibit littering by the person doing the littering, the person who actually goes and takes the shopping trolley and irresponsibly leaves it on the street. They are in there, and they should be in there, because no-one should be running off with a shopping trolley—and certainly no-one should be running off and throwing it into bodies of water. However, these are clearly not working because the problem persists. It is quite a difficult thing to enforce, someone wandering off with a shopping trolley.

What this bill tries to do is provide a new obligation on the supermarket operator to collect shopping trolleys and to identify shopping trolleys. We see this in clause 14, which inserts a new section 24A requiring the identification of shopping trolleys. That is a reasonably easy thing to comply with; indeed, most supermarkets already carry some form of identification on their shopping trolleys, and the smaller ones that might not can comply with that obligation simply by putting a sticker on their existing trolleys, for example. That should not cause too much concern to the retailer, and it certainly makes it easy for someone like me to be able to report the missing trolley and for the supermarket to retrieve the asset.

We also see section 24B being inserted into the act. This provides a new obligation on the supermarket to collect a shopping trolley when it is reported to them. They have to do so immediately in circumstances where that trolley is a hazard—and we might explore what that actually means—and, where it is not a hazard, they have to do so within three days of being notified. I seek leave to conclude my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.