Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 7 Hansard (18 October) . . Page.. 1819 ..

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.

Bill agreed to.

Debate resumed from 9 May 1995, on motion by Mr De Domenico:

That the Assembly takes note of the paper.

MR MOORE (3.47): Mr Speaker, I would like to say a few words about this ministerial statement following the Transport Ministers meeting held in Perth on 21 April. The first point to note, Mr Speaker, is that in the third paragraph of the statement the Minister said that Ministers had endorsed a national strategy to make public transport more accessible for people with disabilities and had agreed to release the report. What concerns me, Mr Speaker, is that the program is aimed over 20 years. In the Minister's response I would be very interested to hear why such a clear need would take 20 years to implement. It would seem to me that accessibility to all modes of public transport, particularly in Canberra, should be able to be managed quicker than that. I understand that, in some States where they have rail, for example, as their mode of transport, there will be issues that they have to deal with that are not so important to us. That would include major modification to very expensive rolling stock and to capital works.

There is another point I would like to raise. At the bottom of page 3 of the copy of the speech that Mr De Domenico tabled there was a reference to the extension of the national heavy vehicles driver licence to all drivers of vehicles over 4.5 tonnes gross vehicle mass. It is high time that that happened. There were moves on this a couple of years ago. I hold one of those heavy vehicles driver licences. It may surprise Mr De Domenico to know that not only do I have a licence for semi-trailers but I also have one for buses, including one for fare paying passengers - a licence that I maintain and earned the hard way. Mr Speaker, I think this is particularly important.

It is also important that the Ministers work together to ensure the principle that I think is referred to here as a "one licence, one driver" protocol - the notion that a drivers licence issued in one State cannot be duplicated by another drivers licence issued in another State by somebody using perhaps a family address or something along those lines. Similarly, Mr Speaker, I think it is incumbent upon Transport Ministers to work together on such issues as ensuring that, where somebody speeds, for example, and receives a penalty in one State, those penalty points are also lost in the other State. When a driver from the ACT speeds in New South Wales and receives a penalty, that penalty, first of all, has to be paid, and when penalty points are involved those points come off the licence.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .