Page 1156 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 24 June 1992
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In relation to the extension of the traffic infringement notice payment period, members will recall that I announced some weeks ago that the Government was reviewing the issue of parking infringement notices and traffic infringement notices which have been reformed over the last few years to provide for the principal penalty being loss of licence or loss of registration as opposed to, potentially, a period of imprisonment or a fine. One of the issues that will be addressed, as well as rights of appeal in relation to parking offences, is this issue of discretion to extend payment periods.
I would have thought it would be more sensible if the Assembly could wait until the next sitting period, when it is likely to have a comprehensive package of reforms to this whole area, rather than adopt this bitty approach of thinking of one issue and coming up with an idea and legislating it through, and perhaps then having to re-examine it in a couple of months' time. However, while urging members to leave it alone for the moment, if members are determined to do some tinkering here in advance of a comprehensive review it would be far more sensible if we had an extension of that appeal period, say, to 56 days, rather than an unlimited period of extension.
I heard Mr Humphries, I think it was, waxing lyrical on this the other day on one of the radio news programs. There is this extraordinary dichotomy in the Liberal Party, who on the one hand run around saying, "Let's get tough on law and order", getting hard on criminals, and on the other hand proposing unlimited periods to pay speeding fines. Speeding offences are comparatively serious. We recently quite dramatically increased some of the on-the-spot speeding fines, particularly in relation to speeding through school zones. The approach that we should all be nice and cuddly on this and give people unlimited time to pay their parking fines does sit rather oddly with the general rhetoric we hear from the Liberal Party on these issues.
Be that as it may, I would suggest, firstly: Let us leave it alone because we are reviewing the whole process, and a systematic overview of this whole scheme is more sensible that a bitty approach. However, if members feel it necessary to change from the current 28-day period - and I understand that this may be moved by either a Liberal or an Independent member - let us have an additional prescribed period rather than an unlimited period of discretion to pay parking fines at the level of the discretion exercised by a police officer.
MR HUMPHRIES (10.57): Can I speak again on this matter, Madam Speaker?
MADAM SPEAKER: If you wish to speak again you have to have leave, Mr Humphries.
Leave granted.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, I want to respond to a couple of things the Attorney-General has said about this matter. First of all, with respect to the 100 kilometres per hour zone and keeping to the left-hand lane, the Attorney raised some points which in an abstract sense might well persuade someone to think that this is a matter we need to give some consideration to. It is, I suspect, a classic case of saying that this thing does not work in theory, although it works perfectly well in practice.
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