Page 576 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 19 May 1992
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about not being forced into wearing helmets. I realise that those people were more motivated and did write to us more frequently than the others. I fully acknowledge that. Our last surveys, over the last few days, resulted in 75 per cent of people saying yes, 22 per cent saying no, one per cent saying that they did not have enough information to make a decision, and 2 per cent being unconcerned about the issue.
Mr Connolly: Dennis, you have to vote with the Government.
MR STEVENSON: So, as Mr Connolly has suggested, I should vote for the compulsory wearing of helmets, and I will, regardless of my personal views. I think it is fairly clear that the majority of people in Canberra agree with the action, and I think that is the way it should be in society. If we, as a community, make a decision, we can then benefit or have some lack of gain on that decision, and I think that is the way it should be.
MR MOORE (8.46): I guess the irony that I find in opposing this legislation is that I am probably one of the very few people in this Legislative Assembly who ride a bicycle regularly and wear a bicycle helmet. It would be of interest to me to know just how many other people own helmets and ride their bicycles. It is one of those curiosities, I guess.
It seems to me that in making this decision it is very easy to say that there is a simple black-and-white argument as to whether one should be free to wear a helmet, or whether we should compel because of the measure of damage done in our society. It seems to me that we draw our conclusions, and we make our decisions, after weighing up the cost and the benefit. By and large, having weighed up that cost and benefit, a quite large number of members of the Assembly have come down on the side that the benefit outweighs the cost. That is really what we are talking about this evening.
I do not believe that that is the case here and it concerns me in terms of the precedent that is set. Ms Szuty raised the issue of the possibility of having helmets for people who are wearing rollerblades or who are riding skateboards. I imagine that, if we were to look at the statistics per mile or kilometre travelled on those types of vehicles, we would find a quite significantly higher percentage using bicycle helmets. No doubt in this chamber some time in the next decade we will see legislation that will provide for the protection of rollerbladers, and the users of whatever new invention comes, saying that they should wear helmets. Another interesting point that was raised by someone else is the possibility, if one looks at the statistics, that we should be insisting on helmets for passengers in vehicles, and that is the next logical conclusion.
In looking at these matters, we weigh up the cost and the benefit and make our decision accordingly. Somewhere along the line we are going to have to draw the conclusion that it is no longer our responsibility to interfere with those rights and freedoms of other people and that we should allow education to fulfil the role. That is the point made by Mr Stevenson.
If we were really serious about using the statistics to determine whether people should or should not be wearing helmets, there are some interesting statistics that many of you would have received. I do not know how many of you would have studied them. They were provided to all of us by the Cyclists Rights Action Group. These statistics on fatal crash types come from the Federal Office of Road Safety and are for 1988. These statistics do not tend to vary that much from year
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