Page 1765 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 18 August 1992
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MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.48): I must say that I was intrigued by the results of the Dennis poll that said that only about one-third of people supported this and two-thirds probably disapproved. I suspect that, if you asked people whether they thought we should have speeding police who book motorists for speeding, you would probably get two-thirds saying no, they should not be there.
Mr Kaine: You would get 100 per cent.
MR CONNOLLY: Indeed, 100 per cent. Most Canberra motorists do tend to think they have a God-given right to speed; it is only those other ratbag drivers on the road that are the nuisances.
Mr Moore: Especially when it is raining.
MR CONNOLLY: Yes, there does seem to be a general view that when it rains the Tuggeranong Parkway is turned into a speedway and people go faster. Mr Stevenson does, however, raise a serious point in his amendment. I am not sure how closely he has looked at the legislation. His amendment has clearly been scribbled out on the run, and I am not sure whether he has looked closely at proposed section 164H.
The serious point Mr Stevenson makes is that other electronic equipment can send out a signal that can operate to jam a police radar and can thus be picked up by the police as a radar jamming device. That is a well-made point. Indeed, the incident he referred to, as I understand it, occurred in much the circumstances he described. Proposed section 164H says:
It is a defence to a prosecution for an offence under section 164G -
that is, having the jammer -
if the defendant satisfies the court that the device concerned was not designed as a radar detecting device or a radar jamming device but was designed for another purpose.
So there is a clear provision in the Act. If you are pulled over by a police officer because the police radar shows that there is a jamming signal emanating from your car, the law makes it quite clear that, if that signal is emanating from your car fridge, your car telephone, your car mixmaster, your car microwave, or whatever - - -
Mr Kaine: Or your cigarette lighter.
MR CONNOLLY: Or your cigarette lighter or whatever.
Mr Humphries: Are these ministerial cars that we are talking about?
MR CONNOLLY: No, Mr Humphries, they are not. Whatever device you have - the jacuzzi in the stretch limousine, or what have you - you will not be prosecuted. So, Mr Stevenson, if we had an absolutist law which imposed a penalty on anything that had the effect of jamming a police radar, your point would be well made; but we have clearly seen that possibility of other items having unintended consequences and provided for it by way of a defence to a prosecution. Of course, in the sensible administration of this Act, it would not
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