Page 938 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 17 June 1992
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is wrong in principle to say that your right to challenge a matter depends on the discretion of an official; that there should be a statutory right to go and challenge a parking ticket, with, perhaps, a requirement that you pay the court cost, if you wish to challenge - obviously, if you win you will get that back - and with clear undertakings that you will pay the Government's costs if you lose. Equally, if you win, the Government will pay your costs. That is an area where we need to do some finessing.
Another area where we acknowledge a need to do some finessing is the area of potential extensions of that discretion. We are currently working up some proposals which would allow a further period of 56 days. At the moment you have 28 plus 28, being a total of 56. We are working up a regime where we are looking at 28 plus 56, being 84. But that is specifically looking at some cases that have been raised in the traffic infringement areas. We are reviewing parking infringement as well as traffic infringement at the moment, and I would prefer that we bring forward a comprehensive result of that review rather than jump at the moment. I would say, in any event, that an unlimited period of discretion is undesirable.
If this were an area that was one-off and that no work was being undertaken on, I would probably be minded to move an amendment to Mr Westende's proposal and to put in a further period of 56 days in place of the further period of 28, rather than his proposed unlimited further period. But there is some work being actively done on this at the moment within the system. That involves linking the parking operations people and the road safety advisory people within the Department of Urban Services, with some police policy input, because obviously the traffic branch people have sensible views that need to be listened to on any of these proposals.
I would suggest to the Assembly that we do not move on this at all today; that we reject the second amendment. I will be bringing forward later in the year some updating to this whole system. It has been in place now, in relation to parking, for just over three years. It is certainly an advance on the previous system because it avoids the potential of a person going to gaol for a parking fine; but there is some finessing that can be done, and we are intending to do that.
So, while we acknowledge that Mr Westende has raised two valid points - the frustration of choke points on the expressways where there is a slow vehicle in the right-hand lane, and the issue of the extent to which there is a discretion to extend the period for payment of an infringement notice - I would say, in both cases, that it is inappropriate to move by legislation. In relation to the choke points, we should try an educative approach first. We should avoid legislation which could have the potential of, in effect, reducing our two-lane system to a one-lane system. In relation to the extension of periods for payment of a traffic infringement notice, that is really part of a whole package and that package is being actively examined. I am not sure whether we announced that active examination before or after Mr Westende moved this amendment, but it certainly was not specifically in relation to this. It was an issue we knew we needed to look at. We are looking at it across the board and will bring forward a package to address it. I would urge members to wait until we do that, rather than adopt an ad hoc amendment here. In any event, I do not think that an ad hoc amendment is appropriate because it goes to an unlimited period of discretion and, generally speaking, unlimited discretions in officials are perhaps undesirable.
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