Page 3941 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 23 October 1990
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find that for the same offence under the Motor Traffic Act they would end up spending considerably more time in gaol. When Mrs Grassby made this suggestion the ACT's first law officer, Mr Collaery, was very critical of Mrs Grassby. He said that Mrs Grassby did not know what she was talking about and that there was no set relationship between the level of fine and the time spent in prison by way of default. Now, as it transpired that, of course, was not so.
The Magistrates Court Act, section 189, does provide a rate of $25 for each day, and it does go on, to be fair, to say that the magistrates have a discretion. But Mrs Grassby's point remains essentially valid. The guideline, the touchstone, as it were, is $25 for a day. And when a citizen goes to look for the law the citizen may well look to a text on the law - for example, the Law Faculty of the ANU's ACT Supplement to the Law Handbook, which simply says that fines in the ACT are paid off at the rate of one day's imprisonment for every $25, with a maximum of six months.
Mrs Grassby's point remains valid. The touchstone for imprisonment by way of default is, by section 189 of the Magistrates Court Act, $25 a day. There is a discretion vested in the magistrates, so a magistrate may, of course, adopt a different rate. But $25 a day, is the guideline, the touchstone, the basis of imprisonment, and Mrs Grassby's very sensible and thoughtful suggestion, I would suggest, ought to have been taken up by the Government. Mr Collaery rushed into print in his press release and made the rash statement that there is no set relationship between the level of fine and the time spent in imprisonment by way of default.
There is indeed that set relationship, subject to an overriding discretion; but if you have a set relationship it ought to be relevant. If you have a set relationship, just as a fine ought to reflect a real value, so the relationship set down in the Magistrates Court Act between the level of penalty and the time spent in imprisonment by way of default ought to be relevant. When we are looking at dramatically increasing penalties, we ought also to look at that $25 a day schedule. Mrs Grassby's comments were thoughtful and helpful and it was unfortunate that they were so rashly dismissed by the Attorney-General.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (9.07): Mr Speaker, I was not going to speak on this matter, but I think the house is entitled to some comment on some of the remarks that my legal colleague Mr Connolly mentioned. In fact, I will not address the last matter, other than to say that I leapt into print on this issue only when Mrs Grassby issued a press release which was alarmist, wrong, and really not becoming the approach we should adopt in the Assembly. Fortunately, Mr Speaker, the media showed a very responsible approach to the issue. They either ignored it or mutely reported it, and that was the right way to go, considering what the issues were. I will let Mr Duby
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