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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 1 Hansard (30 April) . . Page.. 205 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

in the default notice, the registrar shall notify the Registrar of Motor Vehicles to suspend the defaulter's driving licence or right to drive within the ACT. Where a defaulter is not licensed, the registrar will make an order requiring the Registrar of Motor Vehicles to suspend the defaulter's vehicle registration or ability to obtain or renew a licence.

A default notice will include a requirement that a defaulter provide to the registrar detailed financial information concerning their property and financial circumstances, to enable the registrar to determine the capacity of the defaulter to pay. The registrar will assess the written financial information and will also be able to review relevant personal information from other government departments to distinguish those defaulters who cannot pay from those who will not pay. The registrar may, where he or she believes that the defaulter has the capacity to pay, make an order for civil enforcement action against the defaulter.

Where there is no capacity to pay or the defaulter refuses to pay, the registrar will, by warrant, commit the defaulter to a period of imprisonment. The civil enforcement procedures include a garnishee order which directly debits the defaulter's earnings or attaches to amounts owed to the defaulter and property seizure orders, including land or goods owned by the person. Offenders will be able to apply to the registrar for extension of time to pay or instalment payments at any stage of the process prior to a custodial order being imposed.

Under the scheme the bailiffs will serve a writ of execution on every fine defaulter who does not comply with a default notice. It is intended that the bailiffs will, in all cases where it is possible, make contact by telephone with the defaulter to advise them of the impending expiration of the penalty notice period and the consequences of nonpayment. It is anticipated that this telephone contact will reinforce to defaulters that outstanding fines will be pursued by the courts.

It is accepted that there will be occasions when some people will have difficulties in paying fines. I propose that these cases will be addressed in a number of ways. Payment of fines will be assisted by providing for the payment of the fine by credit card or periodic debit authority where payment by instalments has been arranged. Fine defaulters will be encouraged to sign bank authorisations to permit direct payment of the fine. As I have indicated, time to pay will also be available.

Mr Speaker, it may be suggested that it is not appropriate that a driving licence and motor vehicle registration suspension scheme should apply where the fine default relates to an offence which is not a traffic or parking offence. However, I do not believe that there must necessarily be a nexus between the type of offence and the method of enforcing the payment of the fine. We need to be pragmatic if we hope to achieve the objective of cutting the number of fine defaulters and the number of fine defaulters who are imprisoned.

The philosophy underlying the suspension proposal, which forms the basis for the ACT fine enforcement system, involves the notion that if the Government is to grant a right - that is, the right to drive on the Territory's roads - then members of the public who are in default of an undertaking to the Crown - that is, payment of a fine - can have that right removed.

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