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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 202 ..

Maximum penalty: 20 penalty units.".

This part of the Bill is about definitions. It talks about what is a burnout. I think we are all agreed that the definition of "burnout" is okay. It talks about other prohibited conduct. I think we are agreed on that. What we on this side of the house are not agreed on with the legislation is the reference to prohibited substances. Mr Speaker, we are talking about inflicting a greater penalty on someone who does a burnout on an oil slick put underneath their wheels or who has gone and found an oil slick and done one on it. That is just ludicrous in the extreme, Mr Speaker. Let us look at the penalties prescribed in this part. If a prohibited substance has been placed on the surface of the road or road related area under, or near, a tyre of the vehicle the penalty is 30 units.

Mr Speaker, I know that you would not do so, but that means that you could be sitting in your vehicle ready to do a burnout and Mr Hird, because he is like that, could run out and put some prohibited substance near your wheels so that there would be more smoke. You would be the one who copped it on this one, not Mr Hird, and the penalty would be 50 per cent greater. What a joke! If you are doing a burnout and you get pinged, you have to pay $2,000 or thereabouts. It is $3,000 if somebody else sticks some oil or something like that under your wheel. Mr Speaker, we seek to remove the reference to a prohibited substance.

I will go over it again for Mr Rugendyke's benefit. I think there is a difficulty here which might not have been apparent at the time of drafting. Proposed section 5B(2)(a) on page 4 of the Bill provides that a prohibited substance is a little bit of oil or something else which reduces the traction of the tyres, causing them to spin and make more smoke. If a prohibited substance - let us say that it is an oil slick, just for the fun of it - is placed on the surface of the road, the driver can be penalised. It does not say that it has to be placed there by the driver. It does not say by whom it has to be placed there.

Mr Speaker, there have been times in my life when I have come up to a set of traffic lights at which cars with leaky sumps have dropped oil on the road and, not speeding or burning off, I have actually spun the wheels of my car. You have done it, Mr Speaker; we have all done it. The intention of this legislation is to deal with situations where that is done deliberately, but it does not say that. Mr Rugendyke was keen to hear an explanation and I notice that I am speaking to his back. We all support the idea of stopping people doing these things deliberately, but the way that this legislation is written means that you can get pinged if you accidentally do it.

This piece of legislation does not penalise the person who places the substance there for burnouts to occur. If four or five people deliberately do burnouts in Lonsdale Street, for example, I am saying that we should let the full weight of the law, as agreed at the end of the day, apply to them. But should it not apply also to the person who actually prepares that surface for such burnouts? If, as I have said, five people go down to Lonsdale Street - or Alinga Street or Mort Street - to have a go, wouldn't you see it as reasonable for perhaps six people to be dealt with under the law, one of them being the

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