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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 11 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 3401 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

There are provisions in this Bill for some fairly massive fines, and that is not to say that significant fines are not available as penalties already available in other laws. I heard Mr Rugendyke refer to an incident somewhere in Macgregor or not far from where I live. I knew about that because those playful and sullen youths in their sporty and loud motor cars used to frolic not far from my house. I can tell you that nobody was too happy about it, least of all me. One of my neighbours was even less happy about it because he made his displeasure public. He did not receive too many thanks from the frolickers on that score. He got a dreadful level of harassment which was very unpleasant. None of that would have been fixed by this legislation. Those people were eventually caught in the act. I think that would be the best description.

The police eventually went out to the scene and negotiated the position. There was some sort of a gathering of people. There had been an accident out there. A young fellow had a motor vehicle accident. There were terrible circumstances, and quite a lot of his friends were upset. They were involved in all of this sort of stuff. I do not think this sort of legislation would have fixed that. I think the police very sensibly defused it. I expect there were a few defect notices issued and I expect a few people were sent on their way. Probably a few young fellows are a bit more sullen about the police than they once were, but that is the nature of young people.

I do not think the application of this legislation will prevent that. For those of us whose brains are beginning to shrivel, there are lots of young people out there whose brains are still growing. I am sure they will work out ways to do these sorts of things, notwithstanding any laws that we might provide. If we pass a law which tends to inhibit these practices, I am sure there are some inventive young people out there who will find a way around it. This Bill would have been easy meat. I do not think we need to do that. I am really worried about legislating for everything. It really ought to be a measure of our success that we do not legislate for these things.

On environmental grounds, there are plenty of reasons why you would say people should not roar the daylights out of their cars, blow them up, emit large clouds of smoke, burn holes in the pavement with spinning wheels, spoil the bitumen by pouring all sorts of substances on it and so on, but there are other laws that already can deal with those things. Yes, it is a problem for policing, and it is a problem for us, as people who control, in one way or another, this legislature, as to how we provide police services. If there were more police there would be less of this happening. That is true. But there is a point where you say, "Is it necessary to have a policeman standing to attention on every corner waiting for some young fellow to do something silly in a motor car or do something to show off in a motor car?".

One of the things that I have noticed since changes to the motor vehicle registration rules in the ACT is that there are many more noisy vehicles, and there are many more vehicles which seem to me to carry extras that might not entitle them to be registered. That is my impression. Young people are normally not people who are that flush and they cut corners when it comes to servicing their motor vehicles. There are many more vehicles that emit lots of smoke and fumes and all that sort of stuff. I do not think this Bill will address all those sorts of things.

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