Page 1031 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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of a five-year licence, then the holder must pay another five-year licence fee to have the licence reinstated. This is in addition to the TIN penalty on the notice and the administration charge. Of course, if the event occurs in the last year of a five-year licence period, it is a significantly lower loss. I therefore propose that suspension, and not cancellation, is a more reasonable enforcement option for the non-payment of a parking or traffic ticket.
Another procedure which has been reviewed is that which applies where a traffic infringer wishes to dispute liability through the court system. If an infringer wishes to dispute liability, it should be done via the criminal jurisdiction of the Magistrates Court rather than the current process of civil jurisdiction. The present TINs procedure offers the police officer the option of proceeding by summons rather than by issuing a traffic notice, but does not provide the same option to the infringer. By providing for the infringer to have the matter heard in the criminal jurisdiction, it offers the infringer the opportunity to have the matter adjudicated on the criminal and thus higher standard of proof. It is unlikely that many infringers will elect to have the matter dealt with in the criminal jurisdiction as this would involve the risk of conviction and the acquisition of a criminal record, but the option should be available.
A further amendment is designed to ensure that the recipient of a TIN is not able to dispute liability after the issue of a final notice. There are two notices involved in the TINs procedure - the traffic infringement notice itself and the final notice. At present, a person served with a TIN is able to dispute liability at any time up to and following service of a final notice. This has the effect in some cases of creating an extraordinarily long delay before the ultimate sanction is undertaken. The Bill streamlines the procedure by providing that after a final notice has been issued an offender no longer has an entitlement to refer his or her case for adjudication in the court. This approach will not prevent reinstatement of a licence in a case where the justice of the case requires it, as the Registrar of Motor Vehicles has a general discretion to reinstate a licence on satisfactory grounds being established.
Aside from these changes, amendments are also being made to facilitate the setting of PIN penalties in regulations along the same lines as the TIN penalties under the Act. In addition to these major amendments, the Bill also contains a number of minor amendments to streamline TINs operations. Firstly, the Chief Police Officer for the ACT will be able to delegate certain powers relating to TINs. Secondly, costs of a court hearing will be at the discretion of the court. Finally, the Chief Police Officer should be able to withdraw a TIN at any time. Other minor technical amendments to improve the administration of TINs fine default have also been made.
In addition, the Bill reinstates two former sections of the Act - sections 27A and 27B - which were inadvertently repealed by the Motor Traffic (Amendment) Act 1991. These provisions dealt with the auctioning of taxi licences and the limitation on the number of taxi licences that the Registrar of Motor Vehicles could grant. Finally, the amendment Bill will remove sexist language from the Act, in line with the Government's commitment to the ongoing modernisation of ACT legislation. Madam Speaker, I present the explanatory memorandum for the Bill.
Debate (on motion by Mr Humphries) adjourned.
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