Page 2431 - Week 11 - Thursday, 2 November 1989
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MR WOOD (4.06): I support this Bill, as it has significant social and legal reforms contained in it. I want to speak about those two aspects. This Bill is long overdue in this Territory. The social reform contained in the Bill is the elimination of imprisonment as the ultimate punishment for failing to pay a parking fine. This Bill will achieve that by decriminalising parking enforcement. In introducing this Bill, the Minister pointed out that the threat of imprisonment has not proved effective in discouraging parking offences in the past. Obviously, that criminal sanction was not working.
Mr Jensen: It was never applied, was it? Was it ever applied?
MR WOOD: That is right. It is essential to make the general observation that some people often regard the introduction of ever harsher punishments as the cure for society's ills. The threat of sending people to gaol just was not working, and it is entirely inappropriate to the act of overstaying on a parking meter. This Government does not believe in treating parking infringers as criminals, and this was clearly set out in our election platform. Imprisonment has proved ineffective as a detergent - - -
Mr Stevenson: You mean washing society clean?
MR WOOD: That is right; anyway, I cannot resile from that.
Mrs Grassby: No, you are right, Bill.
MR WOOD: I just wanted to see whether you were listening. It has been ineffective as a deterrent largely because it is out of step with present-day community attitudes. When imprisonment is imposed for failing to pay fines, it is the less well-off members of the community who end up in gaol, because paying the fine is much more difficult for them. That, of course, is socially unjust, and unfair provisions of that nature must be removed. Gaining a licence brings responsibilities - responsibilities not always accepted, of course, as we see so tragically so often. One of the most important of those responsibilities is that of obeying traffic regulations, and those traffic regulations include parking regulations.
Another legal responsibility follows the decision to become a registered owner of a vehicle. Further to that, if you lend a vehicle to somebody else who incurs a parking notice and then you choose not to notify the infringer's name and address, you are responsible for the vehicle. You can be sure that the parking ticket that was on my car the other day when I came home, that my daughter acquired, will come back to her. But that is my responsibility and I accept that.
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