Page 3802 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 October 1990
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Transport Advisory Council earlier this year. (Quorum formed) The package includes increased enforcement of seat belt and child restraint wearing. The Bill provides for a period of grace of three months before its commencement to allow parents to hire or purchase a suitable child restraint. During the period of grace a publicity campaign will be conducted to advise motorists of this new legal requirement and will also direct attention to the issue of seat belt wearing in general.
The Bill will also provide for exemption from compliance with the requirements of the Bill for certain classes of motor vehicle. These include all public vehicles such as buses, which presently have no passenger seat belt requirements; taxis and hire cars; drivers of Commonwealth vehicles which bear the C number plates, and motor cycles, of course. Taxi, hire car, and C-car drivers will be encouraged to provide infant restraints wherever possible. There is good reason for exempting public vehicle drivers. These drivers are essentially obliged to carry any passengers who seek to travel in their vehicles. As the Bill places responsibility on the driver of a vehicle to ensure baby capsules or other infant restraints are used when children under one year of age are passengers, it was considered unreasonable for public vehicle drivers to have that responsibility in law.
Parents or carers should have that responsibility, and in a private vehicle it is a parent or carer who is usually the driver of that vehicle. Drivers of rental vehicles, drivers of ACT Government vehicles and drivers of Commonwealth Z-plated vehicles, as well as drivers of private motor vehicles, will all be subject to the requirements of the Bill. They will all be responsible for ensuring that their passengers aged less than one year of age are adequately restrained in a suitable infant or child restraint should they be carrying a passenger of that age.
Baby capsules and other approved child restraints are readily available in a number of retail outlets in the ACT for those who wish to purchase, and there is also an infant restraint loans system operated in the Territory by the Child Accident Prevention Foundation. That was mentioned a little earlier. Let me say that I particularly welcome this opportunity to support this Bill as I believe it addresses a road safety issue of vital importance to the community.
DR KINLOCH (11.44): I have been waiting for quite some time to give this speech to all grandparents present. I have seen Mrs Grassby displaying great delight downstairs with one of her little grandchildren and I know this will reach her heart. I speak, of course, as a would-be grandfather, although my children do not seem to appreciate this point. I am pleased to support, hand on heart, this Bill to amend the Motor Traffic Act 1936 to make it compulsory for children under one year of age to be
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