Page 6146 - Week 19 - Tuesday, 17 December 1991
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the non-payment of those traffic infringement notices is dealt with through the courts. There is no doubt that it is important for us - where it has been seen to be successful - to remove this area from the courts. In principle, I have no difficulty in supporting it.
The difficulties that Mr Collaery raised, I think, are some that we still have not got 100 per cent right. Whilst it may be an exaggeration to say that we are approached daily - we probably are approached daily, but the same person is coming back quite a few times - it is a serious concern. It may well be that when the traffic infringement notice is in place we are going to have to leave a sticker on the car stating that it is going to be delicensed, or something along those lines.
I do not have the solution. I know that the department has moved towards resolving these teething problems. Like Mr Collaery, I shall be very interested to hear from the Minister about what actions are currently being taken and whether we can work out just how many people are slipping through the net. They are important issues.
But the other important issue, I think, is that when I originally raised this issue I believed that the cancellation of the registration of a car would also mean the cancellation of the third-party insurance. At the time I was assured that that was not the case and that third-party insurance still applied to a vehicle even though it had been deregistered or the driver had had his or her licence cancelled. I would be very keen to have the Attorney reassure me that that is correct.
There is no doubt that it is important that the Magistrates Court be freed up from hearing petty offences and also that the Australian Federal Police resources be used in much more useful ways - in particular, in the very good work that they are doing in crime prevention.
MR STEFANIAK (10.53): The Liberal Party supports these Bills, which basically adopt the same procedure as that which currently applies to parking matters. We think it is entirely appropriate that that is the case. Persons who did not pay traffic fines were subject to a period of imprisonment in default - one day's imprisonment for every $25 of the fine, I think, although that may have gone up to $50 in the last couple of years. This is a much more efficient way of collecting fines. At present several million dollars is outstanding in unpaid traffic fines. It has been a very inefficient process. A lot of people merely neglect to pay fines, and quite often they go unpaid for a number of years. A lot of police time is taken up in executing warrants on unpaid traffic fines, some of which date back a number of years.
This legislation certainly gives people a very real incentive to promptly pay their traffic fines. It has worked very well in the case of parking offences, in terms of collection of those fines, and I am sure it will work
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