Page 4948 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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In relation to fines proper - and I think this also extends into the police area - I asked about this matter at the Estimates Committee hearing. I think the court fines - about $400,000 - related to a little less than 1,000 criminal offences. That is not a terribly satisfactory level of fining. In the ACT, we are still very lenient in terms of the fines people receive for various types of offences, be they traffic, criminal or whatever. When we compare the Territory with our next-door State of New South Wales, we see that in many cases the fines here are about one-third of what one would pay in New South Wales for a similar offence. That also applies, to a lesser extent - because of self-government, I think - to such things as traffic infringement notices.
Certainly, during the course of the Alliance Government, I was pushing - and I am glad that my colleague Mr Duby did bring it in - for the traffic infringement penalties to increase, although we are still somewhat behind some of the other States. There is, however people decry it, a revenue raising aspect to fines. Fines are there for people who misbehave - not for misbehaviour to any great degree, but certainly for traffic offences and other non-criminal types of offences. In the criminal law, fines exist as an appropriate penalty to reflect a certain degree of criminality, or perhaps a person's situation in terms of prior convictions or whatever. It is a very appropriate form of punishment and, indeed, deterrence in some cases.
It is not used enough, I feel, in the ACT. In my time as a prosecutor here and, indeed, my time as a defence counsel in New South Wales, I found that giving someone a bond is usually fairly worthless. Someone you are acting for may think, "Oh, great, I do not have to pay anything". It means nothing, whereas there is nothing like the old hip-pocket nerve to bring home to someone that actually they have done the wrong thing, and maybe they might wake up to themselves next time around. It also has very much a revenue aspect, which is certainly underutilised here in the Territory. I think people should bear in mind the fact that we are the most lenient State in the Commonwealth in terms of our fines.
I often look at the drink-driving column in the court reports just to see who has been picked up, as much as anything else, having grown up here in Canberra. It is amazing who you see there at times. I also look at the level of fines, and there are still large discrepancies between some of the magistrates. I am pleased to see some of the newer magistrates adopting a more rational approach and giving fairly reasonable fines, although some of their older brethren still are a little bit light, to say the least.
Certainly, the $400,000 which we anticipate getting from court fines - and my recollection from the Estimates Committee hearing is that they are for criminal matters - is fairly low. I would expect, really, that that figure
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