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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4510 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

It is a sensible response to the Community Law Reform Committee report. As members would be aware, that report came down after I had tabled this Bill and I said that I would be prepared to modify it to make it consistent with that report. I went into negotiations, particularly with Mr Humphries, and these amendments were drafted for us. These amendments are still at a very early stage, but I think it is appropriate, and Mr Humphries is in agreement, that they be circulated to members so that they can look at them and see whether they have any problems with them. I have gone through them. They seem appropriate to me, but I am open-minded if other members wish to come back to us to discuss them.

There are a couple of issues that will still need to be considered. The first one raised by Mr Wood is what happens when on-the-spot fines are not paid. He may remember that under the Labor Government legislation was introduced concerning traffic fines and so forth to encourage them to be paid. There is the loss of the driving licence. He will recall that I wrestled with that for quite some time before I finally conceded that I would agree to that method. Indeed, it certainly improved the collection of traffic fines. We know from studies in South Australia, where they have been giving out cannabis expiation notice fines, that a very wide range of people are not paying their fines.

Mr Wood raised the issue of what happens when police officers wind up doing much more work to follow up an on-the-spot fine. One of the amendments deals with allowing automatic issue of warrants of arrest in the event of an unpaid fine, so that you do not have a long process of the police following up. It goes back and the person then automatically comes to court. The choice for the police officer is either to charge them or to give an on-the-spot fine. There is an enticement for people. They can make their own choice. They can say, "Yes, I want to go to court", or they can say, "No, I am going to pay the fine rather than go through this process". I think that might well meet some of the needs that Mr Wood raised and that Jason Byrnes of the AFPA also raised.

The other issue that I think is really important - I think Ms Tucker mentioned it - is the notion of contestability. It is incredibly important in our system that an individual has the right to contest a decision of a police officer, so that we do not have an arbitrary decision. That is the concern that I have always had with move-on powers. In this case, if an on-the-spot fine is given, the person has the right to contest that decision by taking it to court. The contestability stays, and that is what attracted me to this approach, rather than going down the line of move-on powers.

Mr Speaker, what this legislation is really about is being able to keep police on the beat. Interestingly enough, of the two areas that the Community Law Reform Committee agreed to, the one that motivated the legislation most was the issue of public drunkenness, particularly drunkenness outside nightclubs, and how that could be handled when there are large groups of people. That was the motivating factor, and that is the one that is still in here.

If we can get this legislation through the in-principle stage tonight we can look at and negotiate these amendments over the next week. Even if Mr Wood is not in a position to support the legislation now, provided it goes through in principle I am happy to include him in any negotiations on the detail stage of the Bill. We will, at least, then have a method of trialling this new way of keeping police on the beat. It may not work.

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