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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4778 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I believe this approach is inappropriate and inconsistent with the approach in the Magistrates Court Act. There is already a process for dealing with the failure to pay a penalty as prescribed by Mr Moore's legislation in Part IV of the Magistrates Court Act. Magistrates have a discretion, where an information is laid before them, to issue a summons or a warrant. I am concerned about the compulsory nature of the Government's amendment. Basically, though, other than that, we will support it.

I want to state again that I do not want to see this become, in a way, a default move-on powers mechanism. I understand that the rationale behind it is far from that; that is not the intention. As I said, I want to see very clearly that it has not been abused in any way. It may well be necessary to have some kind of formal evaluation of it in the next Assembly after a period of time - maybe six months or a year.

MR WOOD (5.35): The sudden suggestion by Mr Humphries that this should be regarded as a trial confirms the Opposition's view that we would not support this Bill or these amendments. The fact that Mr Humphries now says this is a trial suggests very strongly that he does not have full confidence that his amendments will do the job claimed for them. Unless I missed something, nowhere in any recent debate on this has the word "trial" ever been raised. The Minister can tell me if I am wrong on that. I agree with the view, as Mr Moore did, that we want to keep police on the beat as much as possible. I am not yet convinced that this will do that. I am not yet convinced that the aftermath of a host of unpaid fines is not going to provide more work than what might be saved in that first instance.

I acknowledge that the report of the Community Law Reform Committee, in its section on on-the-spot fines and on three defences, leaves it open for the amendments proposed by the Government. I acknowledge that, because they very carefully exclude the other areas that Mr Moore originally indicated and leave those two open. But that committee also raises a number of issues which need consideration, and the Opposition believes that they need consideration at the same time. There are quite important issues there that I do not think can be put aside while we deal with just these. Over and above that, there remains the significant issue that we are reluctant to bring change to a recognised procedure for proceeding with charges where offences occur. We have here what I suppose we could call incremental creep. Bit by bit, the list of on-the-spot fines is growing, and that raises some concerns for the Opposition.

In respect of these two items that are left on the list, it could be that the reasonable belief of a police officer as to whether an offence has been committed is open to abuse. It could be that the police will proceed with enthusiasm where the DPP may not. There is the potential for a large number of notices to be given out. This is particularly the case in respect of the drinking in public places offences. It could be that notices would be given out fairly freely. I have confidence in the police that that would not happen, but we do like to put into our laws provisions that state quite clearly what can and cannot happen. So, that adds to our reserve about this legislation and the amendments. We will not agree to them.

Amendment agreed to.

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