Page 1593 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MOTOR TRAFFIC (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 4) 1989
MRS GRASSBY (Minister for Housing and Urban Services) (10.55): Mr Speaker, I present the Motor Traffic (Amendment) Bill (No. 4) 1989. I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
This Bill is intended as a major social and legal reform by eliminating imprisonment for parking offences and minimising the cost of follow-up action necessary to recover parking fines. It will encourage prompt payment of uncontested fines while leaving rights to natural justice unaffected.
The Bill will remove parking matters from criminal jurisdiction and will do away with the provision that requires parking offenders who fail to pay fines to be imprisoned. The very idea that imprisonment should be the ultimate sanction against someone for failing to pay a parking fine is clearly out of step with community attitudes as we approach the 1990s. Apart from this, it is quite apparent that the threat of a prison sentence has not acted as an effective deterrent against parking infringements in the past.
Prior to the tragic bashing of a fine defaulter in New South Wales several years ago, some people regarded imprisonment for non-payment of parking fines as fairly minor. They could incur a number of fines, refuse to pay them, and then discharge the lot by spending a weekend in custody at the taxpayer's expense. Following this unfortunate incident, no ACT parking offender has been imprisoned. Prison sentences are nevertheless still being imposed in the Magistrates Court because the law has not yet been changed.
To allow this situation to continue unchanged is clearly out of the question. It would be seen as an open invitation to commit parking offences in the full knowledge that any fine could be discharged with impunity. There is also the question of cost. Next year the ACT will take over full responsibility, including financial responsibility, for the courts in the Territory. The cost of imprisoning fine defaulters in the past has, in fact, made up only a small part of the total cost of dealing with parking offenders under the present system. In particular, due to their sheer volume, the problem of dealing with parking offenders has placed a great strain on the ACT Magistrates Court.
While I am hopeful that the Federal Government will act promptly to implement the recommendations of the recent report on improving the operations of the Magistrates Court before we accept this responsibility, it is still crucial for the ACT Government and the Legislative Assembly to act now and do what we can to improve the situation.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .