Local Nuisance and Litter Control Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 22 March 2016.)

The Hon. T.T. NGO (12:11): I rise to indicate my support for this bill. This is an important bill not only because it establishes much-needed clarity and consistency regarding responsibility for dealing with littering and local nuisance but also because it highlights the importance of thorough consultation and cooperation.

As a former member of Port Adelaide Enfield council, I am familiar with complaints from constituents with regard to noise, illegal dumping, dust and smoke, and I am sure many honourable members are also familiar with these types of complaints. Such environmental nuisances are common occurrences in all cities, and it is therefore essential that clear guidelines exist for dealing with complaints so that residents are receiving the same service regardless of where they live.

South Australia is currently the only state in Australia in which local government responsibility in this area is not legislated to some extent. Whilst provisions do exist in the Environment Protection Act 1993 for councils to manage nuisance, these are currently non-mandatory and there is no consistency in their use across councils, which generates confusion.

There is no doubt that local councils with their strong local connections and understanding have an important role to play in the management of environmental nuisance issues. The purpose of this bill, therefore, is to improve the management of nuisances and littering across the state. It will clearly define the scope of local government's responsibility for managing nuisance in the community, while more serious offences will continue to be referred to the EPA.

Importantly, the bill will ensure consistency of service to the community across council boundaries and better regulatory tools for enforcement, and it will deal more effectively with vexatious complaints. It is vital that local and state governments work effectively together to ensure that all parties understand the division of responsibility. It is therefore commendable that the development of this bill has involved such extensive consultation resulting in a much more focused bill.

The development of the Local Nuisance and Litter Control Bill 2015 has been underway since late 2012. A discussion paper was released in March 2013 and formal consultation of the draft bill commenced in July 2015. The consultation process was extensive and included six regional public meetings across the state in Wudinna, Victor Harbor, Karoonda, Port Pirie, Naracoorte and Adelaide. Direct contact and discussions were also undertaken with stakeholders. In addition to this activity, a ministerial working group consisting of representatives from the EPA, LGA, Department for Health and Ageing, SA Police, KESAB, and the Office of Local Government was established to guide the drafting of the legislation and provide governance for the project.

The LGA also established a reference group to assist with the development and review of the details of the drafting instructions that met regularly over an 18-month period. In total, 49 submissions were received during the consultation period. Many councils provided support for the intent of the bill, and feedback in regional areas was generally positive towards the bill.

I understand that feedback from members of the public received by the EPA has been unanimously supportive of the bill. The concerns that were raised resulted in constructive and valuable suggestions to improve the operation and scope of the bill and to limit the resource implications for council. I am told that the EPA has taken the majority of these suggestions on board and the bill has since been revised to address these concerns.

Specifically, the EPA has allocated four full-time staff to reduce the burden on councils and to assist them with the administration of the legislation. One staff member will likely be located within the LGA to assist with delivery of implementation and transition activities such as training and delivery of information sessions, with the remaining staff to be allocated to groups of councils.

These staff have significant expertise in responding to nuisance complaints and will provide general mentoring to councils and support roles in addressing difficult complaints. In addition, a number of guidelines will be developed by the EPA to support councils in administering the legislation. With the extensive consultation and high level of cooperation and assistance, I am confident the transition to these new arrangements will be smooth and beneficial.

When dealing with matters that cross jurisdictions, it is imperative that a clear and transparent demarcation of responsibilities is in place. This bill does just that and brings South Australia in line with other states across the country. Importantly, the bill will ensure that all South Australians, regardless of where they live, can rely on a consistent service and assistance when it comes to local nuisances. Therefore, I strongly commend this bill to members.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (12:18): Family First rises to generally support the Local Nuisance and Litter Control Bill; however, during committee, we may still reserve our right to put up an amendment based on answers that we get from the minister. Whilst I know the minister, as is always the case, is keen to push this through, I flag to the minister that given that it has been on the go since 2013, if it is delayed for one more sitting day to get an amendment—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Because I do not have 35 staff working under me like the minister does and the two of us have to handle half the legislation. We also sometimes get late input from interested groups and they need to be considered, and that is democracy. You may satisfy me when we get to clause 1 with a couple of your dynamic answers, minister. As a result of that, it may flow through. It is an important bill and, as I often do, even though you do not appreciate it, I commend you for bringing in the bill, but it has been a while in the making.

When it comes to nuisance and litter control, they are both important areas. Litter, in particular, I think it is fair to say from some anecdotal evidence and some survey work that I have seen, is becoming more of a problem, and we need to get on top of it because one of the issues around litter in recent history has been that successive governments have been very keen to reduce the litter stream.

It was Labor that brought in the container deposit legislation, and that has worked well in this state but, counter to that, we also have a situation now where our dumping costs are so high, and that waste levy collection money sits in a part of the balance sheet of the state that helps the bottom line of the Treasurer's books but does not necessarily help local government and others who need that money to further implement initiatives to reduce the amount of waste that we are now seeing deposited, particularly in country areas close to the city and even outlying country areas because people cannot afford to spend the $45 per trailer load and the significant amounts of money it costs trucks and semitrailers to dump hard waste.

In fact, just in the building industry on that, I would like the minister and his department to investigate what can be done to stop illegal dumping into the mini skips on building sites. This is becoming quite an issue. Talking to the building industry, where they used to work on approximately 2.5 skips per home that they built, they are now having to put up to six skips on a building site over the period of the building because of people using those skips to dump hard waste.

At least they are not dumping it on the road verge, which the minister would not want and which I get furious about when I drive around the back of our farm and see incredible amounts of hard waste being dumped. My point is that at least those people, whilst unfortunately it is not technically illegal because it is on a private site, I am advised, are putting it in a skip, but the cost to the building industry and ultimately to those people who are actually building those homes is very high.

In fact, one of the largest builders in this state, I am advised, is now spending several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on additional skip bins and waste disposal. I have even had building supervisors trying to set up CCTV to catch these offenders, but I am also advised at the moment that there is nothing that can be done legally by councils, or indeed even police, because it is on private property.

However, if the builder were frustrated enough to pull all that hard waste out and dump it on the road verge, the builder would then be prosecuted for dumping illegally. So, I would ask the minister, in amongst his busy workload, perhaps to get some officers to have a look at that because it could be a good initiative to possibly look at a change to the legislation or to look at other initiatives to prevent this illegal dumping and help stimulate the housing industry.

To give some background on the Local Nuisance and Litter Control Bill, 'nuisance' includes littering and noises, smoke and dust pollution or local nuisance. The government claims that councils are better placed to respond quickly and effectively to local nuisance issues due to their local presence. I do not have an argument with that. I think the EPA are underresourced and overworked as it is, and it would be good to see a situation where local government can take a bit of pressure off EPA inspectors who, under the current law, have to go out on frivolous complaints as well and investigate those, using a lot of resource and a lot of cost.

In 2012, SARC recommended that legislative reform is needed to clearly define the responsibilities of both the EPA and local government in regard to dealing with local nuisance issues, and Family First are pleased to see those recommendations. In 2013, the LGA's expert panel recommended that the responsibility for investigating and resolving matters of local environmental nuisance be a function of councils with support from the EPA in the form of both expertise and relevant equipment.

At the moment, the level of nuisance regulation greatly varies between local councils. I certainly know through complaints from constituents and dealing with different councils that they approach situations in a very ad hoc manner. Hopefully, the minister will be successful in streamlining that. I understand that the Charles Sturt council is still not satisfied with this bill. If the minister concurs, I would like to know specifically why the Charles Sturt council does not want to be a player in this. I am sure that my colleague and friend the Hon. Mr Tung Ngo would also be interested in what is going on down at Charles Sturt.

The bill is aimed at providing consistency and clearly defining the obligations imposed on all councils regarding the management of local nuisance. It is intended that local councils only deal with low-level or domestic nuisance, while the EPA will still manage all serious environmental issues and all nuisances, whether minor or serious, on EPA licensed sites. I think that is important and paramount and we are happy with that decision.

Councils will be provided with training and resources from the EPA. When summing up or during the committee stage, I would like the minister to advise just how much money and how many resources the EPA intends to provide councils to assist them with implementing the bill. There is not a lot of point in bringing the bill in if we end up with a situation where we do not have the training and resources to make the bill workable.

Clearly, the bill aims to outline the responsibilities for managing nuisances and littering across South Australia and provide some consistency. It does aim to reduce litter along roadsides, and I say: hear, hear to that! The bill talks about tourism and shopping precincts. If you look at Yorke Peninsula and some of the litter there, we need to get on top of it. Non-government organisations have bins in shopping precincts to collect non-required assets from people which they can then turn into benefits for other people and raise money. You see dumping occurring there, which costs St Vinnies and those sorts of organisations a lot of money. I hope we can see some positive improvement once this legislation is passed into law.

Yorke Peninsula is a great tourism area. I often read stories in the Yorke Peninsula Country Times about illegal dumping, even—

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: Are you going to tell us who the editor is?

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: The editor is a very talented, excellent, attractive young mother—well known to me, as her father. But I do read that paper regularly and there is often—

The Hon. T.A. Franks: Like a seven or eight, or a nine? How attractive?

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: The editor? To their fathers, every daughter is attractive, I am sure, and mine is no exception. Yorke Peninsula is an important tourism area, and it is having a lot of problems with dumping, so hopefully the bill will address some of that.

This bill seeks to improve the usability of surveillance evidence gathered in a case of illegal dumping. Whilst we did recently see a repeat offender finally prosecuted and given a suspended sentence for dumping, that is the only case I can recall when we have actually seen the powerful opportunities currently in place put through the courts. I would hope that, if other offenders are prosecuted and it is reported in the media, that will be a significant deterrent. The bill also establishes a public litter-reporting scheme.

I commend the minister and the government for what I think has been, on this occasion, some pretty good consultation with local councils, the public and key stakeholders, including the LGA, the EPA, the Department of Health, SAPOL, KESAB and the Office of Local Government. The key elements of the bill contain a clear definition of local nuisance that can change through prescribing nuisances under schedule 1 by regulation. It establishes three classes of litter: general litter, class B hazardous litter and class A hazardous litter, a category mainly limited to asbestos.

What does worry and concern me is the intent the minister has, or does not have, to include KESAB in this as well as councils. Having worked with KESAB for over two decades in this parliament, I know that it is an organisation that is very focused. I am sure the minister would agree with that. It is an organisation that is highly respected by the South Australian community for the efforts it has made as a non-government, not-for-profit organisation to reduce the litter stream.

I would ask the minister—and this is where I may foreshadow an amendment or two, depending on the minister's answers, which I am sure the minister can give us in clause 1 of the committee stage, if he does not already have the information—to outline, over and above local government, what he intends to do in assisting KESAB to be a key player in reducing this litter stream and whether or not he is prepared to give them equivalent powers to local government officers when it comes to expiation notices and enforcement.

Secondly, I ask whether the minister intends to make money available for KESAB to be involved in proactive media campaigns and other relevant campaigns to assist with the reduction of the litter stream. I believe that with everything else that has been going on we probably have not been doing enough in marketing and reminders to the community generally in South Australia about the importance of not littering and the benefits of a clean environment when it comes to litter and, hopefully, a target of zero in the litter stream. I wonder whether the minister is prepared to look at some funding for KESAB and whether he is prepared to have that committed in legislation.

They are the two key things I am looking for responses from the minister on; whether I get a basic amendment or two tabled late into the debate will depend on those responses. With those words—and seriously meaning this—I commend the minister on this occasion for his endeavours to reduce the litter stream and the nuisance issues that we have discussed. In general principle, Family First supports the second reading of the bill.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (12:32): I believe that everyone who wishes to speak on this legislation has had the opportunity to do so. I would like to thank honourable members who have contributed for their very thoughtful contributions to the second reading. I would especially like to focus on the Hon. Mr Brokenshire for his very generous acknowledgement of the government's hard work to bring this legislation forward for the consideration of the council.

This bill has been developed, as I think some honourable members have said, in a very collaborative manner with local government over the last several years. It contains numerous important reforms that will work, I think, to improve services to the community regarding local nuisance and will also work to reduce the prevalence of litter and illegal dumping across the state as it starts to take hold and the different agencies involved start to use the powers that will be available to them.

I think there is currently considerable confusion in the community about the delineation between state and local government roles and responsibilities related to local nuisance issues. Communities certainly have a high expectation that local government will assist them in resolving these issues of minor local nuisance. This has been evidenced through some research by McGregor Tan over a number of years on behalf of the Local Government Association which they have shared with us. It indicates that 53 per cent, 72 per cent and 66 per cent of respondents over a number of surveys consider that local government is best positioned to deal with such matters; that is their expectation.

This is not surprising, as indeed councils are clearly at the coalface in local communities. They are closer to individuals, particularly in rural and regional areas, and they are usually the first port of call for a complaint. Also, I think it may have been you, Mr Acting President, who reflected that in every other state there is legislation that clearly outlines, at least to some extent, this function being allocated to local government.

This bill will limit the responsibility of local governments to those nuisance type issues. More serious offences will continue to be referred to the EPA. Effectively, what we are putting into the legislation is what happens now. I guess that is largely why local government is so broadly supportive of this legislation.

This delineation of responsibilities is supported by a recommendation of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee, as the Hon. Mr Brokenshire mentioned in his contribution. It is also supported by the local government Local Excellence Expert Panel that was established by the LGA to consider future reforms for local government in South Australia.

The bill proposes a raft of reforms to litter regulations in this state. These include provisions that support the establishment of a public litter reporting system in South Australia and improvements in the use of surveillance or evidence gathering in the case of illegal dumping. Going to the Hon. Mr Brokenshire's question about KESAB officers, it also allows non-government organisations to undertake compliance activities subject to appropriate training and approval.

These reforms will work to significantly increase deterrence for littering and illegal dumping, and result in a reduced clean-up cost to local government and improved amenities for the community. I commend the bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: In response to questions I was asked during the second reading, particularly from the Hon. Mr Brokenshire, I can say a few things, and some of them may satisfy him, some may not.

In terms of the City of Charles Sturt, I understand they have had an in-principle motion on their books since the mid-2000s to oppose this sort of legislation, and they have not changed their position since then. The advice I have is that this really shows up the inconsistency between how different councils operate because, if you look at the adjoining council of West Torrens, it deals with 100 per cent local nuisance issues. If you live across the road in the council of Charles Sturt, its view is that it should be the role of the EPA.

This is a problem, certainly for the community and for ratepayers who do not have the consistency to enable them to understand who they should call if there are issues that they need to address in terms of minor nuisance. This is what the legislation is trying to do: to say to councils, 'This is your responsibility; over this line, it is the EPA's responsibility.' Clearly, we cannot stand a situation where two adjoining councils have a totally different view about what is their business and what is not, and this is what the legislation is there to address.

In terms of resources for councils, it may have been you, Mr Acting Chairman (I cannot remember), in your contribution who indicated that there will be four full-time equivalent staff allocated to work with councils on these issues and the transition through legislation; one of them, I understand, will be outsourced into the LGA's offices to be the direct interface between the LGA and the councils.

They will contribute their time and resources to work with councils to take them through any difficulties they may have with the legislation. I envision that the councils that will use them most will be the smaller rural and regional councils which do not have a lot of resources of their own to do this work and which probably have never really addressed the issues of local nuisance at all. I expect that they will be the ones who will take most advantage of these officers who will be available.

In terms of KESAB, I have already outlined in my final contribution that it is envisioned, much as we do probably with the RSPCA, that their staff are authorised under legislation to do certain acts. We will be working with KESAB, which has already indicated an interest in doing this with us, but of course there will have to be appropriate training, it will have to be authorised, and the provisions of the act they can be active in will be limited. My understanding is that the bill currently now provides that, should that happen, they will keep, for example, the fees associated with expiation, so that will be a funding mechanism for them and will help them.

Additionally, as separate, it may be useful to understand that KESAB will be working with Green Industry South Australia (GISA) in terms of the local littering app that will been developed and in terms of developing a website, and those two agencies will be working very closely together on that resourcing. KESAB is a very valued player for us and a very valued partner; we work with them very closely, and I fully envision that we will be doing so even more closely into the future.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: I thank the minister for answering those questions. I will home in on the KESAB questions before asking a question about what funding, as well as training, the minister is thinking of providing to local government and also what he would do with a dissident council like Charles Sturt if the others are playing the game and Charles Sturt decides still not to play the game.

On KESAB, I note and thank the minister for indicating that KESAB would have a role, but would the minister be agreeable to KESAB being one of the authorised bodies regarding enforcement?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I make absolutely clear that, for them to be authorised officers, they would have to be one of the authorised bodies, and that is certainly the intention.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: I thank the minister for that. Is the minister prepared to be the conduit between the EPA and KESAB to look at whether or not there is any value in a trial period between KESAB and the EPA after this legislation is passed regarding the branding and marketing, if I can put it that way, of the act? What will we do to ensure that people understand these changes and that we get real results and cooperation from the community generally?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I thank the honourable member for his invitation, but it is unnecessary. I understand that the EPA has met with the KESAB board on several occasions, and certainly in terms of this legislation as well. Their relationship is already quite solid and they are working together very well.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Based on those answers and, as I often do, taking the minister's word as gospel, as well as the fact that we have this on the public record, I most likely do not intend to bring any amendments. However, to get to the other questions, given that you are awash with money when it comes to the massive accumulation of dumping fees for waste, what financial resources, what money, how many dollars, do you intend to put into campaigns and the like, as well as training?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: There will not be any cash grants given to the LGA, but I understand our contribution will be in the order of something over $1.2 million in terms of full-time equivalents. In addition, we will be producing guidelines, fact sheets and some of the materials that councils will be using in their communities. So our contribution will essentially be in-kind but it will certainly be substantial, and over $1 million over three years.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: My final question to the minister is: the minister indicated that Charles Sturt has been consistent in its opposition to this type of concept since, I think he said, the mid-2000s, so for several years now. If it does not come on board as a proactive player like the rest of the councils, what is the stick that the minister will apply to the council?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: My advice, and my hope, is that we will not need to use a stick. We think that Charles Sturt council is standing on a principled position and has done so for some time, but should this legislation pass the houses of parliament it will reconsider its position. We expect, and I certainly think their community will expect, that it acts in accordance with the legislation that this parliament will have passed.

Charles Sturt council does, of course, have responsibilities under the Local Government Act to, if you like, be a good and law-abiding citizen, and the minister with responsibility for that act will certainly be interested in having discussions with the council about how they can become a model citizen in relation to local nuisance.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (2 to 51) passed, schedules and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (12:48): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

Sitting suspended from 12:49 to 14:16.