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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (30 March) . . Page.. 1146 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

sitting in places without the handbrake on can be hazardous, too. I think the amendment is worth while, but the principle with the national road rules is forcing me to vote against it.

MR HARGREAVES (3.32): Firstly, I would like to express appreciation to Mr Rugendyke for looking at this matter - - -

MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, are you just speaking to the amendment?

MR HARGREAVES: I am speaking to the amendment.

MR SPEAKER: Thank you, otherwise you would be concluding the debate.

MR HARGREAVES: No, Mr Speaker. In fact, my conclusion to the debate will be even briefer than you would ask for. As I said, I would like to express appreciation to Mr Rugendyke for looking at it from the point of view that he did, that is, as an issue of safety. I disagree with him, but I wish to acknowledge that point. The amendment does go a long way towards overcoming the idiocy of this situation.

I want to make a couple of points about the national road rules. The rules talk about controlling the safety of vehicles travelling towards you on the road. To that extent, we are all happy with them. I think most members of this place are happy with almost everything that they have read. But I will bet you, Mr Speaker, that most of the members here have not read this tome, 400-odd pages of it. My office has gone right through it and I have gone right through it, Mr Speaker, and all of the rules, bar this one, relate to road safety.

We are not obliged to support all of the national road rules. The idea that we might look silly if we do not agree with a particular part of them should be debunked. Most of these rules come out of two notions. The first is about having consistency round the country, which we are really keen to have. The second is about framing them around a worst case scenario. A lot of these things are framed around the Sydney or Melbourne road environment. We do not have that situation here. They are about the way in which people in those capital cities address their responsibilities to their own cars. We do not have the same attitude here. We ought not to be bound slavishly to these road rules. I believe that we can set aside those notions. Mr Rugendyke is agreeing, in effect, with what I am saying here. He is attempting to amend this legislation, saying to the drafters of the national road rules that certain things do not work here in that way. They may well be applicable in their States, in which case they would pick up the total wording.

The other thing I want to say, Mr Speaker, is that I do not believe that failure to do these sorts of things should be an offence. I think it should be a matter of common sense. Really, the implications of what will happen if people do not do so are that they will have problems with their insurance companies. They ought not to have a problem with society at large. It should not be an offence which carries a penalty of $60 or whatever. That is just taking behavioural modification and behavioural control too far. Where a breach of the rest of these road rules can endanger a life, I have no difficulty with the penalties. This rule does not cover that.

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