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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 1 Hansard (30 April) . . Page.. 206 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The sanction of driving licence or vehicle registration suspension is an attractive cost-effective enforcement alternative to imprisonment. It has been proven to be an extremely effective measure to encourage payment of infringement notice penalties and, in other jurisdictions, has been successful in prompting payment of court imposed fines. The new New South Wales fine recovery scheme also utilises this very effective enforcement mechanism.

Mr Speaker, I propose that any suspension order, for driving licence or registration, imposed for default in payment under this scheme will be deferred in the event of the granting by the registrar of an extension of 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 paid in full.

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application of the new scheme to the unpaid fines will be staged progressively, with the warrants being chronologically withdrawn from the AFP.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 three months 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 system, 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 6,028 ACT offenders are in default of payment of 12,475 traffic infringement notices valued at $2,115,564. Approximately 6,394 ACT offenders are in default of payment of 10,763 parking infringement notices valued at $679,491. The extension of the fine default scheme to include all infringement notices will permit a consistent approach to be adopted for the recovery of outstanding fines to the Territory. It is not proposed that the application of the scheme to unpaid infringement notice penalties commence until the scheme has been established in relation to court imposed fines.

Mr Speaker, I commend the Bill to the Assembly so that the Territory will, at last, have in place an effective scheme for encouraging payment of fines and penalties and for taking action to collect fines where offenders refuse to pay.

Debate (on motion by Mr Stanhope) adjourned.

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