Page 496 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 23 March 2022
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and, more importantly, the two amendments that have been circulated in my name today. I am going to speak once, both to this amendment, which is on clause 9, and to the next amendment.
My amendment and the government bill both aim to improve road safety. Where people are harmed as a result of negligent driving, these bills aim to bring penalties closer to meeting community expectations. My amendment fills a gap in the law to make sure that we have an enforceable penalty when drivers injure road users. This will help to improve safety and create a culture of care on our roads. This is really important. We are in a climate crisis and have to take real climate action as fast as possible. Around 60 per cent of our tracked emissions come from transport. We have to do all we can to reduce that and we need to give people lots of great transport choices while we are doing that.
Active travel is the original zero emissions transport, but we know we have barriers to uptake. Vulnerable road users—the people who are walking, riding, cycling, scooting, or using a wheelchair—are really worried about their safety when they are on or near our roads. We need to do all we can to protect them, to make sure they are safe and to make sure they feel safe. Active travel is also essential to reduce congestion and it is great for physical and mental health. It is really fun too. I rode today, to the great relief of my advisers. I am a better human being when I have ridden.
Last year I started a debate about road safety to encourage active travel and to protect our vulnerable road users. I tabled a bill which aimed to address the gap in our road laws. We already have an offence for negligent driving, which can be taken to court. But, more typically, police issue an on-the-spot traffic infringement notice for $398 and three demerit points.
We also have an offence for negligent driving that causes grievous bodily harm, which is punishable through the courts. The maximum penalty there is a fine of up to $16,000 and imprisonment for up to one year. That is a very serious offence and there is a high threshold to trigger it. Case law tells us that grievous bodily harm involves terrible lifetime injuries like facial fractures and bone deformities requiring major surgery, or severe, traumatic, life-threatening injuries to brain, face, kidneys and chest, requiring lengthy hospitalisation and lifetime care.
We also have offences for driving in a furious, reckless or dangerous manner that puts at risk the safety of a vulnerable road user. These are also only punishable through the courts, as they should be. They are serious offences with maximum penalties of between $16,000 and $80,000 in fines and between one and five years imprisonment.
Fortunately, what happens most often on our roads between drivers and vulnerable road users has less severe consequences than this. The government bill sets out common examples of actual harm like cuts, scrapes, bruises and sprained ankles. These have a really big impact on the victim. We have to change our behaviour and we have to make our streets safer and encourage a culture of care on our roads.
Part of that means making our laws cover the situations that occur most frequently. But we also have to do this with appropriate penalties and in a way that makes those
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