Page 3269 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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commission on this issue at the moment when, as I said, the facts show that there is a reduction in detected offences - there is no particular crisis here - is simply absurd. It is politicking at its worst.
MR STEFANIAK (3.37): Firstly, I will address a few points Mr Connolly raised in relation to on-the-spot fines. While certainly any form of identification would help, on-the-spot fines can operate in a number of ways. It certainly is not something whereby a police officer or a liquor licensing inspector would give someone a piece of paper and take money. They have 21 days to pay it and, if the officer is not satisfied as to a person's identity, the person could be perhaps taken back to a police station, and inquiries could be made of parents and so on.
Of course, if a person has identification, so much the easier; the process is a lot quicker. Obviously, a pub card, a car licence or something like that - and our ACT car licences now, of course, have photographs on them - makes identification all the easier, but it is not essential to have identification to have an effective on-the-spot fine type of situation. Indeed, an on-the-spot fine type of situation can also be varied in terms of other measures to provide that, if there are problems with identification, people who cannot satisfactorily identify themselves can be perhaps charged. It could be done that way. However, the very idea of the GALA report, I think, should be taken on board by this Government regardless of Dr Kinloch's matter of public importance, because there are a number of very good points in there which should be acted on by this Government immediately.
Firstly, on the question of under-age drinking, I am pleased to hear Mr Connolly say that the Government is doing something in relation to a pub card. I talked to him in about June on that. I was getting a little bit tired of nothing happening and, accordingly, I indicate to the Government that unless it does something by 15 October we, the Liberal Party, will bring in the necessary legislation to introduce that very sensible measure. But I am heartened by what Mr Connolly says - that the Government is moving on that - and I will have further discussions with him on that. That certainly will address some of the problems.
Apart from on-the-spot fines identified by GALA - which I think are very sensible because the cautioning system simply is not working - basically, the only thing that seems to make an impression on most people is hitting the old hip-pocket nerve. It is just human nature. If you slap people over the wrist with a wet tram ticket, they just laugh at it and think that it is a big joke. Kids are no different from adults in that regard. The suggestion in the GALA report for on-the-spot fines is very sensible.
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