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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2625 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

I will not be supporting Mr Hargreaves' amendment. My only advice to people who receive a fine and feel that they have been unfairly done by is perhaps to call Mr Munday, who is sitting in the chamber and who has had significant victories against the police, one most recently. It is his shout on the weekend, Mr Speaker.

MS TUCKER (3.50): As I understand it, Mr Osborne has two amendments. One is that there be a review of this legislation after two years; is that correct?

Mr Osborne: Yes.

MS TUCKER: The other is that police officers should perform the duties. I am not supporting the amendment regarding the police officers, but I am supporting the provision of a sunset clause. This legislation would be reviewed then and if there were an issue regarding who should take on the job we could have that evaluated and assessed then.

MR HARGREAVES (3.51): I thank Mr Osborne for waiting for me to make a case before making up his mind. I will do the same thing. The Labor Party supports the two-year sunset clause but will not be supporting the proposal about the police being the only people operating the cameras. Mr Speaker, when we first spoke about it, we believed that the police should be the only ones operating the cameras. We received a briefing from the superintendent who will be overseeing the whole lot and we were convinced that any discretionary decision-making should be left with the police, that the police should determine where these cameras would be placed and make sure that the cameras work in concert with the radar, not in competition with it, but we believed that there should be an oversighting committee comprising very able officers from DUS and the NRMA, particularly Mark McKenzie, who has more skills in this area than the Minister has ever heard of, and, of course, the police. I am happy with that being the case. That oversighting committee will do the right thing.

It is the case, Mr Speaker, that the crime statistics we saw just the other day are pretty horrendous and we need every highly-trained police officer we can get out there looking at the really serious ones. I am not decrying the potential for death and serious injury on the roads, but we are knocking on the door as far as leading the country on assaults on persons and home invasions are concerned.

Given that the resources for the police bucket are finite, if it comes down to a choice between the two I would rather have the police out there trying to protect our people than standing on the road and booking speeding drivers. I would rather have it both ways but we cannot; that is the reality of the day. Mr Speaker, we will be supporting the amendment about a sunset clause, but we will not be able to support the other amendment.

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