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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (10 March) . . Page.. 535 ..

MR HARGREAVES

If we remove this piece of paper from the process, the offence will be treated in exactly the same way as any other, with the exception that there is the record of the two-hour timeframe kicking off. It exists. It also exists in the police notebook. It can be provided as well, if necessary. If the magistrate is not happy, he can still get the police in. That happens now. There would be no difference. If there were, in fact, any further calling of police to the court because of this sort of thing, I believe that it would be either because of an exercise in pedantics on the part of the magistrate who does it or because they have been set up. I would urge members to vote to exclude the requirement for this piece of paper from the legislation.

Question put:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

The Assembly voted -

AYES, 8   	NOES, 7

Mr Berry  	Ms Carnell
Mr Corbell  	Mr Cornwell
Mr Hargreaves  	Mr Hird
Mr Kaine  	Mr Humphries
Mr Osborne  	Mr Smyth
Mr Quinlan  	Mr Stefaniak
Mr Rugendyke  	Ms Tucker
Mr Stanhope

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General, Minister for Justice and Community Safety and Minister Assisting the Treasurer) (4.24): Mr Speaker, I want to make one further comment about the legislation. I have already put on record my fear about what the courts are likely to do and the views of the Director of Public Prosecutions. That is fine; I am on the record on that subject. If we have to come back for some reason to rectify a problem, that record will be there for people to behold at the time.

Mr Speaker, I think we need to be able to be a little bit empirical about what this Bill is designed to do. This Bill is about reducing the time police supposedly are spending on filling out a particular certificate which they give to motorists, thereby freeing up police resources to do other things. I hope that those who have supported this Bill will accept, if the result of the Bill is that more police time is being spent in courts because the courts

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