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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (30 March) . . Page.. 1113 ..
MR HARGREAVES (continuing):
ACT without breaking the general thrust of the uniformity. I stress that because the Government will say that this is about national road rules and we have to comply with the lot. We do not have to comply with the lot.
The Government may say that we need to pass the whole package so as not to be out of step with the rest of the country. I reject that notion in the case of absurd regulations. These regulations are an affront to the civil liberty of individuals. They legislate our behaviour in our own backyard. It would be a breach of these regulations, with a possibility of a fine, for people to leave their vehicles unlocked in their own yards. That is an example of how legislation, if allowed to run rampant, can dictate every activity of our community.
Mr Speaker, I acknowledge the attempt by the Government to amend the regulations to cover one anomaly, but I suggest that the proposed wording is clumsy, hard to understand and insufficient. Also, it does not address the fundamental right of individuals to be responsible for their own property. The Labor Party has endorsed most of the package because of the provisions that address road safety. They ensure standards of driving behaviour and ensure for drivers that the vehicle coming towards them will conform to those standards. Rule 213 is not about road safety. It is about property; it is about ensuring that thefts decrease. As I said, it is not about safety; it is about reducing the cost of motor vehicle theft. It is not necessary that we adopt the whole road rule package. In fact, knocking back this rule would be a message for the Minister to take back to the forum, through the maintenance group, to get the rest of the country to understand that the rule is against property and is not talking about road safety.
I seek the Assembly's concurrence with my motion of disallowance because the rule is in the wrong spot. Let us talk about road safety, not property. I will not speak to the amendments that Ms Tucker will be putting forward. It is suffice to say that what Ms Tucker is trying to do with those amendments is to take things back to the status quo. The status quo is fine for the ACT and we should support those amendments.
In summary, the road rules are about road safety. This rule is not about road safety; it is about property. It is an infringement of civil liberties in that you can be done for leaving your car unlocked in your own yard. There is anecdotal evidence to show people's confusion about that. The conflict between the Animal Welfare Act and this legislation is apparent. If one can say that one piece of legislation has precedent over the other, I would have no difficulty with that; but the unintended consequences of this rule will cause confusion and we need to fix that up. I urge the Assembly to pass the motion and understand that we do not have to agree to all of these rules. Any suggestion that the whole package has to go forward is nonsense. This is not template legislation; make no mistake. It is not a case of all or none. We can knock off just one little piece of it so that it makes sense to us and support the rest. I am saying that we should support most of the road rules because they are a great idea - uniformity is a great idea - but not this one.
MR BERRY
(12.03): Mr Speaker, I will try to confine my contribution to this debate, but I want to deal with a few points. First of all, it seems to me that middle-class people have designed this rule, people who have access to central locking and electric windows in their cars and can secure their cars in that way. But a whole lot of people out there do
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