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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 908 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

(b) by inserting after subsection (2) the following subsection:

`(2A) The Registrar shall not approve a driving test for the purposes of subsection (2) other than a test conducted by a member of the Australian Capital Territory Public Service, or a member of the public service of a State or another Territory, in that capacity.';

(c) by inserting after subsection (14) the following subsection:

`(14A) For the purpose of satisfying himself or herself as to the capabilities of an applicant under subsection (14), the Registrar shall have regard to any certificate of competency in relation to the applicant.'; and

(d) by omitting subsection (15) and substituting the following subsection:

`(15) The Registrar shall not fix the date and time for a driving test referred to in subsection (2) unless the applicant has paid to the Territory the determined fee.'.

Mr Speaker, what my amendment does is remove the provision in the Bill that allows the registrar to issue a provisional drivers licence to a learner driver merely on the basis of the learner having received a certificate of competency from an accredited driving instructor. My amendment makes clear that a learner driver must pass an approved driving test given by a government examiner before being issued with a drivers licence, although the registrar can still take into account whether the learner has a certificate of competency when deciding whether to issue a drivers licence. My amendment in subclause 9(d) is a consequential amendment dependent on the passing of the earlier subclauses.

At present the Motor Traffic Act does not clearly state that a learner driver must pass a test; it is merely that the registrar is satisfied that the person is capable of driving. The new subsection 14A in the Bill modifies this process by allowing the registrar to have regard to a certificate of competency. As you will note in my subclause 9(b), I am not intending to remove subsection 14A from the Bill, as I believe that the logbook process leading up to the completion of a certificate of competency could be quite worth while for learner drivers. What I want, however, is for there to be a final step in the process, and that is the passing of a driving test given by a government examiner.

Our amendment to require learner drivers to still undertake a driving test has been criticised for negating the basis of the continual assessment scheme because the focus of the learner would still be on passing the final driving test. This was not the intention of our amendment. The Motor Traffic Act does not specify the detail of the driving test to

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