Page 1701 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 May 1990
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citizens of Sydney having a chuckle over their cornflakes at Mr Duby's situation and this Government's refusal to act.
Now what of this offence? Mr Collaery said on Pru Goward's program on Friday morning that in the scheme of things this was not a criminal offence. This I can only describe as a bizarre statement, although I must give Mr Collaery credit. He did say earlier in the interview that it was a very serious matter but not a criminal offence. How can that be reconciled? I will look forward with great interest to Mr Collaery's attempt to reconcile that.
It is clear that a second offence under the Motor Traffic (Alcohol and Drugs) Act 1977 can carry not only substantial pecuniary penalty and a cancellation of licence, which is what occurred in Mr Duby's case, but a term of 12 months' imprisonment; a first offence can carry a term of six months' imprisonment. The magistrate in having regard to the antecedents of the person before him can choose to impose a term of imprisonment. He did not in Mr Duby's case, and it is to Mr Duby's credit that he was not imprisoned. But for the offence he has committed he could have been. That, in my understanding and in the understanding of any other person that I have spoken to, must make this an offence that must be described as a criminal offence. I wonder at how the magistracy in this Territory regards Mr Collaery's statement that, in the scheme of things, this is not a criminal offence.
Mr Collaery, as he is fond of reminding me, was a practising lawyer before the magistrates court. I was not a private practitioner in this Territory. I was practising government law and constitutional law and was before other courts. But as Mr Collaery well knows, day in and day out, the sad procession appears before the magistrates courts of persons charged under this Act for these sorts of offences. The magistrates are doing their best to impress upon those defendants, and through the pages of the Canberra Times and the other media upon every citizen in this Territory, the seriousness of road traffic alcohol offences.
What an appalling situation it is that those offences are now described as "in the scheme of things, not criminal offences". How do the magistrates feel about that? How do the police who are out there in the dark of night and on wet and rainy days pulling people over for random breath tests feel about being told that, in the scheme of things, this is not a criminal offence? How will the magistrates react to defendants who, when faced with these charges, get up and say: "Well, in the scheme of things, this is not serious, this is not a criminal offence. After all, it is all right for a Minister to do this". That was an extraordinary statement from the Attorney-General.
The Chief Minister last week did not come out of the bunker but did eventually issue a statement, and he had three points in defence of Mr Duby. His first point was that
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