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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2599 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

the number of crashes going down by those sorts of figures. I do accept that. I saw figures bandied around when I did my research on it, but I must say I just do not believe them. What I do believe, as I have mentioned, Mr Speaker, is that, if accompanied by the appropriate publicity and the appropriate enforcement, we can have a change in driver behaviour as part of the process.

That brings me to the fourth point, the fourth E, which is encouragement of good practice. We need to be rewarding people for good practice. I am not quite sure how we can go about that other than to have ongoing reinforcement of good practice. If we see a downturn in the number of people speeding, let's not be tardy about publishing that. Let us get in there and say, "It's working", and make sure that we attribute it to the fact that people have changed their driving behaviour. Do not attribute it to the fact that they are being booked. Do not attribute it to the fact that they are being bullied into it. We need to congratulate them on that.

The fifth E, Mr Speaker, is for enforcement. Enforcement is a funny thing. We can have policemen out there booking people and we can have savage fines and really draconian legislation to cover that, but I am not going to promote that. Really, the enforcement, Mr Speaker, has to go hand in hand with the publicity. It has to be a fairly significant fine, but it also has to be about changing behaviour.

I keep coming back to this theme all the time. Speed cameras are fine if they are part of an overall strategy to change drivers' attitudes, behaviour and habits. The NRMA and groups of that ilk believe that any road safety initiative should contain all elements of these five Es in order. I urge the Government to put these steps into practice and to follow the process to ensure that motorists benefit from speed cameras through a change in driver behaviour.

Interestingly, the Director of the NRMA, Richard Talbot, does not support speed cameras. He believes that road safety is about driver education. He is pushing for a program in driver education, with practical experience, to be included in the New South Wales School Certificate, which would be funded through a portion of fines that the New South Wales Government has collected. I encourage the Minister for Education to look at implementing a similar program for the ACT curriculum. If the projections are right, this initiative is going to reap $2.5m for an outlay of about $100,000, plus a couple of staff. Let us suggest that it actually costs us $200,000, which would be a fair cop, I would imagine. By the Government's own figures, it is going to reap $2.5m. If the Government is honest and real about road safety, let us see some of that $2.5m allocated specifically to changing driver behaviour at the beginning edge of the stick. Mr Speaker, I know that the department has initiatives to change driver behaviour in its new program for learner drivers, and I see that as a very positive step forward, as I have said a number of times in this place.

Mr Speaker, recently a current affairs program listed numerous problems that the South Australian Government was having with speed cameras. In the report, a motorist's car, which was on the back of a tow truck, was booked for speeding. The motorist queried the fine and requested a copy of the photo. It was only when she examined the photo

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