Page 5060 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
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The Government has been involved in a series of negotiations with the organisers about how this event is to be conducted, and there will be police patrols. The organisers have been very cooperative with the Government to ensure that there is a minimum of disturbance and a minimum of danger or harm to people or property in the area. With the fencing, with the patrols and with the measures taken by the Government and by the authorities to ensure that some of the events of last year do not occur, I think we will see a great decrease in anti-social behaviour, especially some of the very worrying aspects of property damage, such as people ripping down fence palings and burning them, that occurred along Northbourne Avenue last year.
With the measures the Government will be taking to ensure that the relevant signs are put up and the relevant fencing is put up to stop people parking there and camping there, and with the measures to be taken within Natex itself by the organisers, and the measures that will be taken to enforce these measures not only by the rangers and the parking inspectors but also by the AFP, this year's event should be considerably different, and a large number of the problems simply will not be there to the same extent as they have been in previous years. The actions to be taken by the Government and which have been taken by the Government are totally consistent with the recommendations made, Mr Wood, by your Social Policy Committee.
One of the problems last year was that a lot of people who come to this event - all right, let us call it the hoon element - come here and budget on paying about $500 in fines. A lot of traffic infringement notices were issued by police last year and a number of people were charged as well for driving in a dangerous manner and negligent driving - more serious matters than what you might get with a traffic infringement notice. But a lot of people laughed at the traffic infringement notices because then they were very low, $80 being the maximum. This year the Government has acted on the concerns expressed by the police. Those infringement notices have been increased to $130 and, as I said in this house when Mr Duby introduced those measures, I was very pleased to hear him say that the upper limit will also be looked at to see whether it should not be increased further. Certainly, I believe that it should be increased further than that; perhaps even $130 is a little bit on the low side. That is why I was very pleased to see him indicate that that will be looked at, and they will be increased further if need be. So, that request by the police to provide a little bit more of a deterrent for some of these would-be traffic offenders has been actioned by the Government, and if need be the Government will increase those further in the new year.
Ms Follett mentioned use of the move-on powers. I am not certain whether it was in one of those reports produced by Assistant Commissioner Bates for this Assembly, or whether it was from some other document or from something I was
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