Mahuta NanaiaHon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Madam Assistant Speaker I rise to make a contribution on the first reading of this particular bill. Having heard the contribution of its sponsor Scott Simpson I understand the sentiment. I would tend to agree that several of our towns and communities are frustrated by the fact that there is dumping and littering in public spaces and they do want to ensure that the quality of life that they experience in their towns and cities and in public places can be preserved and looked after by just keeping the place clean.We do believe that this bill should be supported and go to select committee so that it gets a full hearing. Again the point was well made that it hasn't been since 1979 when the principal Act was introduced into the House that there was a significant look at its provisions—more fit for purpose for the modern context.The other point that I would say is that increasing the fine is a somewhat punitive step towards addressing the issue when we know that the reality of enforcement monitoring and being able to actually catch the perpetrator of littering is somewhat difficult and more and more councils are reliant on the public to report instances where they see people littering in public places. In fact I'm sure many members in the House would agree that even with social media now there's a lot more community pages that are actually posting instances where in their local town there are some common areas where people do dump.I thought I would raise those issues because we think that by going to select committee there will be an opportunity for the submission process to pretty much raise these issues but also look at what the opportunity might be in terms of addressing the issues of monitoring and enforcement but also the issue of promotion. We know that the principal role for promoting I guess a clean town and city is undertaken by Keep New Zealand Beautiful an incorporated society and that is an important function which goes hand in hand with the monitoring and enforcement provision and with the infringement fine. They all exist together.In a comprehensive look at this issue it's been somewhat of a concern to me that simply increasing the fine from $400 to $1000 might not achieve the intended outcome. In fact councils in how they apply the infringement fine would have a graduated step as to the levels of fine according to the type of litter that has been distributed. So for example cigarette butts vis-à-vis dumping of rubbish vis-à-vis dumping of tyres vis-à-vis dumping of vehicles—they're all different and I think require a different approach. It's for that reason again that the select committee will draw out a better approach than simply an infringement fee and actually address the issue of dumping in our communities which I think will be a welcome step from councils if we have a serious look at the matter.It will be an important consideration for the select committee. This is to ensure that they are covering the issue of capacity of councils to monitor. Many councils don't actually have a lot of people working in this area. Small councils have people who multitask and do the monitoring and enforcement of litter. Larger councils will have up to say four or six—or mid-sized councils let's say. So again the capability within a council to undertake this role I think has an impact on whether or not the intended consequence or the intended effect can actually be achieved.I wanted to go back to the principal Act and identify what litter includes so that there is some specificity as people are working through the issues on the bill to know what that is. In the principal Act: litter includes any refuse rubbish animal remains"—because often pets are dumped—"glass metal garbage debris dirt filth rubble ballast stones earth or waste matter or any other thing of a like nature". Those are all the kinds of ranges of things—materials that are considered within the interpretation of "litter".But let's come to the issue of glass because I have young children. We know just about all the playgrounds within our district and we enjoy taking our children there. When you have young children there is nothing more frustrating than when you go to playgrounds and the bins are overrun with litter—often household waste—but also broken glass because people have used these recreational areas around where playgrounds are for other activities. It's again worth noting that the principal Act actually separates out broken glass and offers a more significant penalty. I raise that matter also because these are the types of niggles that really impact on people when they think about litter and when they think about quality of life and what needs to be improved.But more importantly broken glass in a public place is very dangerous so I do think that separating out the definition of broken glass and attributing a higher penalty or higher fine there is actually quite important. There has been an instance that I'm aware of where a young child has gone to a playground where there's been bark and there's been a bit of broken glass there and they've cut themselves.But where this will all filter back down to is whether or not the infringement can actually be enforced and that will be the proof of the pudding so to speak—whether or not the bill will achieve its intended outcome. If there is going to be reliance on the role of the public to report littering—and these are things that need to be considered as we considered similar types of illegal activities within the conservation estate and I guess safety around rangers as people reported. I think we really need to ensure that the select committee flesh out all these types of issues so that we can get a better bill. So while I acknowledge Scott Simpson for introducing the bill to the House I think the issues that I've raised clearly set out that there is room for improvement and there is an opportunity to ensure that the intended outcome of this bill can actually be effected.The other aspect that I want to clearly state as I have before is that by and large a punitive approach in and of itself does not achieve as much as actually promoting and investing in the promotion of public education around the impacts of littering on the quality of life within a community. In fact lots of our kids now are the greatest promoters and the campaigns within schools—Keep New Zealand Beautiful the anti-litter campaign—and the ways in which young people are taught to pick up rubbish after activities within public spaces achieve a heck of a lot and we can never underestimate the investment into the public promotion component of this issue.Finally can I say that once the select committee—and I'm inviting the select committee to have a broad range of amendments back to the bill because the final point that was raised was a comprehensive review of the Litter Act. If we consider the huge problems around dumping of rubbish I think that is an outstanding area that certainly would be improved by considering a comprehensive review. So I support the bill we support the bill to go to select committee."