POLICE — BRASS AND
COPPER THEFT
510. Hon MICHAEL MISCHIN to the minister representing the
Minister for Police:
I refer to a report of the theft of
cabling, which has disabled lighting at a northern suburbs playing field.
(1) What is the
total value of brass and copper stolen from building sites and other sites for
each of the past two years?
(2) Has the
minister received complaints from the building industry body Builders United to
Stop Theft or others about the problem of such theft and the lack of adequate
regulation over the sale of such stolen nonferrous metals to scrap merchants?
(3) If yes to
(2), what action was called for and what action has the minister taken, or
proposed to take, to address the problem?
(4) Will the
minister implement changes to the Pawnbrokers and Second-hand Dealers Act 1994
to ensure that transactions involving copper and brass are regulated under the
act; and, if not, why not?
(5) If yes to (4), when will such
action be taken?
Hon
STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of this question. The following answer has been provided to me by
the Minister for Police.
(1) The Western Australia
Police Force advises that it is not possible to provide a response to this
question within the required time period. If the honourable member puts the
question on notice, I will seek further information from the Western Australia
Police Force.
(2)–(5) The
minister has received representation from members of the building industry
regarding the operations of the Pawnbrokers and Second-hand Dealers Act 1994.
The minister and WA Police Force take each representation seriously and act on
available information. The difficulty in identifying stolen copper and other
scrap metals without specific identifiers in the scrap metal adds investigative
hurdles. Currently, section 47(2) of the act requires second-hand dealers to
mark and label second-hand goods with a distinguishing number, and section 61
of the act requires second-hand dealers to keep second-hand goods unchanged for
at least 14 days. The act applies monetary penalties to second-hand dealers for
noncompliance with the aforementioned requirements. Proposals to add further
licence restrictions upon second-hand dealers were not adopted by the previous
government.