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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3030 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

You do not have to look far to see the results of the kinds of changes that Mr De Domenico brought in. Victoria, which has a system of inspection on change of ownership, as Mr De Domenico implemented in the ACT, has a high proportion of vehicle fleet defects in the areas of brakes, suspension and steering. Mr Speaker, let us get a bit of a handle on that. In Victoria, they inspect vehicles on change of ownership. That works out to about once every five years, on average. So, 80 per cent of vehicles inspected on change of ownership in Victoria had a vehicle defect.

Let us look at the detail of this. Forty per cent had brake defects; nearly 23 per cent had suspension defects; 13 per cent had steering defects; 6 per cent had seat belt defects, which is obviously a major safety concern; 30 per cent had wheel or tyre defects; 20 per cent had headlamp defects; 40 per cent had turn signal defects; nearly 29 per cent had windscreen wiper defects; and 24 per cent had windscreen defects. Mr Speaker, in other words, under the system that has been proposed by the Liberals, under the system that has been implemented by the Liberals, when you get up in the morning, get into your car and drive somewhere, you are driving on roads where 40 per cent of your fellow motorists - perhaps you yourself - have brake defects; 22 per cent have suspension defects; 13 per cent have steering defects; 40 per cent have turn signal defects; et cetera. Mr Speaker, is that the system we want in the ACT? Is that the kind of road safety we want in the ACT?

Mr Kaine: No; and it is not the system you are getting, either.

MR WHITECROSS: It is the system we are getting, Mr Kaine. The facts are that that is the system that the Liberals have imposed on us in the ACT. What the Liberals are counting on is the fact that it will take many years for us to reap the full penalty of the system that the Liberals have implemented. It will take many years for the vehicle fleet in the ACT to degrade in the way that it has in Victoria; but degrade it will, under the Liberals' proposed system.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, what is interesting, too, is that many of the defects identified here - brakes, suspension and steering - are not the kinds of defects that can be detected by random vehicle inspections. One element of the Government's vehicle testing system is inspections on change of ownership - and we have just found out how effective that is. The other element of their system is random inspections in car parks. The Government last week made much of a report about random inspections in car parks. The Government is always boasting that all you have to do is look at a car and, if the tyres are bald, you know that there is something wrong with the car and, if the tyres are not bald, then there is nothing wrong with the car: There is a strong correlation between whether there is a problem with the tyres and whether there is a problem with the rest of the car.

The Roads and Traffic Authority in New South Wales did a study, inspecting cars in a car park in New South Wales, to look at vehicle defects in those cars. In that study, which was admittedly a small sample, only 11 per cent of the cars tested had tyre defects. But one-third - that is, three times as many - had a brake defect. So, if we rely on the vehicle testing system that the Government wants to introduce, then at least two-thirds of the cars with brake defects will elude the inspection because they do not have a tyre defect. The only real way of being picked up is if you have a tyre defect.

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