Henry Malthus

Repaying my debt to society

Today I repayed my debt to society. My temporary lack of propriety was noticed by an City of Sydney enforcement officer, and a penalty notice for offence code 9607 was issued to me:

I am now $60 lighter, or to be more accurate, my credit card is $60 heavier.

Certainly taught me a lesson, however, as I haven't been dropping cigarette butts on the ground since!

Me being a somewhat legal-beaver, I of course, had to look up the legislation/regulations governing said penalty notice:

(Note: gets a little gritty with details here on out; discretion is advised.)

Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 no 156 (NSW) s.145 (1) states:

(1) Offence of littering
A person who deposits litter in or on a public place or an open private place is guilty of an offence.

Maximum penalty: 20 penalty units.

My legal-lust only partially sated at this point, I was obliged to continue...

A couple of frustrated minutes later, and I found what I was searching for; in Schedule 1 of the Protection of the Environment Operations (Penalty Notices) Regulation 2004 no 601 (NSW) , in the table pertaining to the PEO Act it states:

Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997
Column 1                                                             Column 2               Column 3
Provision of the Act                                                 Officer                Penalty (individuals)
...                                                                  ...                    ...
Section 145: Deposit litter, being unlit or extinguished cigarette   1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7,      $60
(excluding litter deposited from vehicle).                           8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Section 145: Deposit litter, being lit cigarette (excluding litter   1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7,      $200
deposited from vehicle).                                             8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

[Column 4: "Penalty (corporations)" omitted, due to it being a) empty, and b) too wide.]

At that point, I realised I caught the officer on a good day (or perhaps, was caught on a good day!) and should probably count myself lucky that it was a Friday.

NSW Government: please spend my $60 wisely.

As a sidenote, the NSW Government's Legislation website is incredibly well done: simple, effective and easy to use; eclipsing by far the efforts of both the Australian Government's ComLaw , and the New Zealand Government's PAL projects. Also, I was pleasantly suprised to find that legislation is, in general, pretty damn easy to read too.

Anywho, that's it from me for now. See you in August NZ folks.