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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4674 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing)

will be deferred in the event of the granting by the Registrar of an extension for time to pay or an instalment payment plan being accepted. However, in the event of the first default in repayment pursuant to such an arrangement, the suspension will be reimposed and not lifted until the fine is fully paid.

The proposed scheme will apply to all existing court fines and levies. The withdrawal of existing commitment warrants for outstanding unpaid fines, and the application of the new scheme to the unpaid fines will be staged progressively, with the warrants being chronologically withdrawn from the AFP.

To assist in the smooth introduction of the new system, an amnesty will be offered for outstanding fines for a 3 month period prior to the new system being commenced. This will be preceded by a major media campaign to inform the general community of the new sytem, how it works and the need for fine defaulters to pay their fines or to make arrangements to pay off the fine prior to the new scheme coming into force.

Mr Speaker I propose that the fine enforcement scheme will be structured to eventually permit the recovery of unpaid Infringement Notice penalties, where the existing infringement notice enforcement procedures have not resulted in the payment of the penalty. Statistics provided by the Magistrates Court indicate that approximately 6028 ACT offenders are in default of payment of 12,475 Traffic Infringement Notices valued at $2,115,564 and

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