Community feedback was considered before the Compliance and Enforcement Policy was taken to Council for adoption on 1 November 2021. No amendments were made following public exhibition.
To view the adopted policy, click here.
About the draft policy
The Compliance and Enforcement Policy outlines all processes and decision-making approaches relating to law enforcement by Council officers.
A review of this policy was undertaken to ensure that additional activities relating to the new CCTV trailer were included, and all legal obligations and expectations of the community and Council staff were addressed.
Additional measures were included in the policy to address requirements of the following pieces of legislation as summarised below:
- Surveillance Devices Act 2007 - no sound to be captured and devices must not be installed on private property without owner’s permission.
- Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 - when capturing images for law enforcement purposes they must be lawful, relevant, secure and accurate.
- Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 - Council staff work across the LGA and may be incidentally filmed or photographed whilst working. This legislation requires that employees must be given advance notice of any surveillance.
- Crimes Act 1900 - this legislation requires Council to share known details of any serious indictable offence with the appropriate law enforcement authority.
All other items within the policy remain unchanged from the previous version.
Background information
Council receives approximately 1,000 reports of illegal dumping across the city each year. To address this issue, Council staff ran two illegal dumping trials last year, each for six months in identified hotspots, to determine the most effective messaging and enforcement methods to reduce dumping levels. In one of the trials, a mobile CCTV trailer was used, along with strong messaging to deter people from dumping waste. This proved to be the most effective method and was well received by the community.
Following the success of this trial, a mobile CCTV trailer has been purchased and will be used by Council for illegal dumping surveillance and other law enforcement purposes.
