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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 5018 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Item 112 relates to driving in a school zone at a speed of 70 kilometres an hour or more but less than 85 kilometres an hour. For driving at between 70 and 85 kilometres an hour in a school zone, the current penalty is $292 and four demerit points. That is going to eight demerit points.

Item 113 relates to driving in a school zone at above 85 kilometres an hour, for which the penalty is $573 and six demerit points. That is doubling to 12 demerit points. But we are talking about a school zone in a declared holiday period. Oops! Whoops-a-daisy! Even if we were to pass these regulations, we would at least have to take out items 112 and 113 so as not to make ourselves look ridiculous. Why was item 107 left out? Item 107 is about exceeding the speed limit by less than 15 kilometres an hour, for which the penalty is $102 and one demerit point. You may have the cruise control set a bit above the limit.

Mr Osborne: They do not book you.

MR MOORE: Mr Osborne says that they do not book you. Even so, we are not going to worry about giving people double demerit points for that infringement, even though it is speeding. What is the intention of the legislation? I thought the intention of the legislation was to discourage people from speeding. Mr Kaine said that he does not want some drunken sot speeding and causing him damage.

Proposed regulation 33(2) relates to the Motor Traffic (Alcohol and Drugs) Act and the prescribed alcohol level of .05 being exceeded by not more than .03. I would be interested to know why double demerit points are restricted to that level. Perhaps it is because at higher levels you lose your licence. For drink-driving we do not double the demerit points. We add only one demerit point. I cannot quite see the logic in that. I see a very ill thought out procedure. I imagine this procedure came about because someone said, "Hey, they are doing double demerit points over in New South Wales. It looks like good law and order stuff. As we are getting close to an election, we need a bit of good strong law and order stuff too. Let us put a bit of fire in our belly and go for it". Even if we just looked at how the subordinate law was put together, that in itself would be enough for us to disallow it. The fundamental question on which we have to make an on-balance decision is whether we believe that in the ACT double demerit points will really resolve the problem or whether they will just allow us to puff fire. In fact, it would not be fire; it would be more like smoke.

Mr Whitecross has left his motion somewhat late, but he said to me earlier, "I have been inspired to go back and double-check things after your earlier motion to amend a subordinate law". It demonstrates that it is important for this Assembly, and for the future Assembly, to look at subordinate laws. We all have to do that. It is really hard to do, of course. One of the tasks that we have is to look at subordinate laws and make sure that, where necessary, we exercise our power of disallowance or our power of amendment.

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