Page 2239 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 3 August 2021
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Andrew Hoy, what can you say? Riding Vassily de Lassos, they were the only combination out of more than 60 to finish the whole event on their dressage score, and it is more than a normal event. It is not just dressage, cross-country and show jumping; it is dressage, cross-country, show jumping and show jumping again—and two clear rounds in the show jumping, clear without time penalties cross-country, climbing from seventh at the start of the show jumping day into that bronze medal position, and at 62 years of age, having started his international competition career in 1978!
Andrew is the consummate professional in our sport. I am so fortunate to have been taught by Andrew when he was visiting Australia a couple of years ago. One of the things about this sport is that people work really hard. Equestrian sports are really expensive, but all of these people work their absolute butts off. They ride horses that belong to other people and they make ends meet by teaching and training. They all work incredibly hard.
I acknowledge that this was the first time in Olympics history that the individual gold medal had been won by a female rider. So congratulations to Julia Krajewski, the German rider, riding a relatively unknown horse. One of the great beauties of our sport is that men and women compete on an equal playing field. Obviously, from young to old, people are all competing against each other, and we have seen that on the dais at the Olympic Games. I congratulate Julia for being the first female Olympic individual gold medal winner. It is amazing that it has taken this long, but it is fantastic that it has. Congratulations to our Aussie team and huge congratulations to Andrew Hoy. I would not be surprised if we saw him back again in another four years.
Roads—speed cameras
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (4.24): I would like to bring to the attention of this place the plight of thousands of motorists who have been served speeding fines emanating from the new cameras in the newly minted 40-kilometre zones around Northbourne Avenue and surrounds close to the CBD.
I think it goes without saying that all three parties in this Assembly are on the same page when it comes to road safety, but very clearly this has been an extremely perverse outcome. Thousands of individuals have been penalised. I think it is pretty clear that for the vast majority of those, there was certainly no intent to break the law. So irrespective of the signage and irrespective of any information campaign, it is clear that that campaign did not work.
“Steve” has written to me this week. That is not his real name. Steve’s work involves driving a lot. He copped a number of fines in the new speed zones but, as is often the case, they took a little while to find him. So recently Steve was informed that he had exceeded the speed limit on 6 July, 8 July, 12 July, 13 July, 14 July, 14 July again and 16 July. So Steve has been fined seven times.
When he wrote to me he said, “Obviously I was unaware of the change to the speed zone. With seven fines, I will likely lose my licence and lose my job. Life has been a
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