The bill applies to individuals who deliberately cause pollution or environmental damage by improper disposal of waste. Another area of concern to the community which the bill will address is environmental noise. The draft regulations I am tabling in conjunction with the bill will provide a completely new framework to manage environmental noise. Currently, persons aggrieved by noise in their neighbourhood would have recourse to the provisions of the Summary Offences Act. While these enable police officers to take action in relation to noisy parties and other similar activities, the proposed regulations under the new bill will provide additional mechanisms for dealing with other forms of noise annoyance which occur in the neighbourhood and which do not necessarily warrant, or are inappropriate for, the attention of the police.
Unwanted noise can cause many problems in our community.
While many disputes that arise because of intrusive noise in the neighbourhood could be avoided by people exercising reasonable consideration for their neighbours, unfortunately this is not always the case. Where people are bothered by noise and they have approached the person or premises causing the noise in an attempt to resolve the matter, and this has not been successful, they need to be able to have recourse to independent mechanisms to achieve some relief. The proposed regulations will make this possible. The regulations are relatively simple in nature, but are nonetheless capable of dealing with complex cases which may arise. They set standards for acceptable sound levels to be received at commercial and industrial establishments and at noise sensitive premises such as residential units, and make provision for the issuance of noise control notices if necessary.