Page 5431 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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The new ALP Government had the perfect opportunity, and if they had done their homework they probably would have found some of the flaws in the arguments being put to the community by the representatives of the Motorcycle Riders Association. Members may recall that in September this year I put a question on notice to the Minister in relation to his statements about safety and the number of fatalities. For example, the Minister made a statement that motorcyclists suffer about 19 times as many fatalities per kilometre travelled as car drivers.
I asked the Minister on what he based that statement. I asked what was the equivalent figure for fatalities within the ACT for motorcycles with capacities over 600cc and up to 600cc. I also asked what information was available on the size, capacity, cc, and type of the six motorcycles involved in fatal accidents in the ACT since the beginning of the year, including whether the driver was licensed or not. I also asked what were the details of the various component parts, if any, of the calculation of the motor vehicle registration fee for motor cars and motorcycles in the ACT and how this compared with the equivalent fees in the States.
Mrs Nolan: Did you get an answer?
MR JENSEN: I did get an answer, and it appears in Hansard at pages 3638 and 3639. Mr Connolly said in his answer that the information in relation to there being 19 times as many fatalities per kilometre came from a Federal Office of Road Safety publication of March 1991 on motorcycle crash statistics. It reflects the national situation - I emphasise that; it does not reflect the ACT situation. Once again, a little bit of a half-truth was thrown in for good measure.
I went on to ask about the relationship between engine capacities and crashes. Those statistics are not collected in the ACT; the answer I was given was that that information is not available. In relation to the six accidents, in four of those the engine capacity was not known; one was a 600cc and one was a 550cc. Three of the motorcyclists were licensed and three were not; and three were one-vehicle accidents, that is, the motorcycle on its own, and the other three were two-vehicle accidents. According to the answer given to me by the Minister, the AFP agreed to include engine capacity on the fatalities register for motorcycles in the future.
It is interesting to look at the next page of the answer in relation to the comparison with motor vehicle and bike registrations in the ACT. When you look at the figures, which happily I was able to provide to the Motorcycle Riders Association, a very quick calculation shows that motorcyclists in the ACT actually pay significantly more than ACT car owners in comparison with the equivalent New South Wales registration charges. The registration fee for
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