The Queensland Government’s Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation is proposing to devolve responsibility for enforcing unauthorised advertising material (UAM, ‘junk mail’) restrictions to local government.
LINA’s submission makes it clear that any change to the Waste Reduction and Recycling Act must preserve the existing carve-out that prevents newspapers delivered to homes from being classified as UAM by default. Removing this exemption would hurt the ability of Queenslanders to access local news, and provide local governments with a new power to punish unfavourable reporting and/or privilege the distribution of their own communications at the expense of independent journalism.
