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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (7 August) . . Page.. 2451 ..

MR HARGREAVES (12.09): As Mr Corbell has said, in a sense we bow to the inevitable in regard to the installation of speed cameras. However, for the record, we absolutely and emphatically support the use of red light cameras in this town to stop people from killing other people through reckless driving.

Mr Speaker, I believe that the legislation did not need a sunset clause. It should have been introduced without such a provision. We could very well have a raffle around the ACT to decide how many traffic lights ought to be equipped with red light cameras. However, I have to say that the traffic lights at the corner of Newman Morris Circuit and Taverner Street are a bit shy of a speed camera. This is largely because there is no pole to put one on.

Mr Speaker, I think the introduction of speed cameras into the ACT has been an appalling mess. The government should have been honest and said to the people of the ACT, "This has got nothing to do with road safety. This is all to do with cashing in on you idiots," because there are idiots out there speeding, breaking the law and being a danger to other people. This measure has not slowed people down. If you have a look at the curve on the Victorian graph you will see that people get frightened for a while and then they go back to their old habits.

I do not believe that this measure has had a particular effect on changing driver behaviour. The minister's own figures have shown that whilst most people have dropped their speed, the number of speeding drivers being pinged has gone up. If you have a look at the accelerating rate of revenue that is coming in from this source, clearly there are more people speeding. In addition, people are being recorded as driving at speeds far in excess of 15 kilometre over the speed limit.

The government would have us believe that this is a really "you beaut" road safety measure and yet they are the same people that have maroon coloured speed vans operating at 11 o'clock at night in bushes on the side of the road. My colleague Mr Wood saw one in operation last night. I might add, Mr Speaker, that he was not pinged for excessive speed. As we know, Mr Wood is an extraordinarily cautious human being.

Mr Hird: A bit like yourself.

MR HARGREAVES: Not unlike Mr Hird. I have to say that if it is going to be a road safety measure, it has got to be in your face-absolutely in your face.

Of course we need to have speed camera vans out there. But we need to tell the ACT public, "This is a revenue raiser. We want your money to fund more police, more ambulance officers and more road safety education." Of course, there is no causal relationship between the amount of money you get in from the speed cameras and the amount of money that is spent. So if anybody tells you that the government is spending more money on speed cameras because this is a road safety issue, they are telling you porkies. Mr Speaker, they are pseudologists of the nth degree-and I suggest that Mr Hird look up the meaning of that word.

Minister, I take it that we are talking about the re-instating of the burnout legislation?

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