Page 2734 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 26 September 2007
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was the precedent that led to the creation of the Dangerous Substances Act. I am pleased to know there is a review underway. Standing out, in particular, was recommendation 13, which basically advocates the introduction of on-the-spot fines with the authority of the police to impose those on people committing various violations in relation to illegal fireworks. Now, I do not think that has happened to date, but it would seem to me that that would be a sensible measure.
A couple of my observations are that, apart from those areas of complaint and concern with regard to injury to individuals as well as misuse, there are concerns about those who persist in operating outside of the June long weekend. I am aware of two examples of that which I have stumbled across as a local member. I did notify the police in relation to that. I do not know what they do, but if the police are required to proceed with a prosecution, I can understand that that may be a disincentive for them to go through all the paperwork and trouble of going to court when the community probably sees larger or more serious offences warranting their time. It may be better if there were on-the-spot fines for those who persist in disregarding the constraints.
I know what Ms Porter says about people setting off fireworks after 10 o’clock or something, but I think it is a bit rich when people start setting off fireworks four and eight weeks after the celebration period is finished and assuming that that is fair game. In fact, the other evening I was in Griffith and I saw a fireworks display of some considerable magnitude going off on the oval there down in Canberra Avenue. I pulled up, because I thought there was some event on—I thought there was an electorate event I should be at. I was absolutely amazed to observe some of our younger people, who appeared to be visitors from across the border, out there running their own Queen’s Birthday long weekend events a little bit late—some couple of months late.
It is all well and good to have high fines and pass more laws, but, at the end of the day, if you are going to break the law, either through ignorance or, I suspect, through design, then just passing more laws will not be the answer. I think what you need is to have a situation where the police can move on those situations when they receive complaints from residents and issue an on-the-spot fine. Hopefully, that will get the message across to people that this behaviour is unacceptable.
I am not a big advocate of these sorts of prohibitionist measures. I do understand the distress expressed by the RSPCA. As a kid, I always used to see on the front page of the paper after the fireworks night there was someone who nearly blinded themselves for had nearly blown their hands off, and they were always pretty terrible stories to read about. I know how careless we were when we were younger, but that was probably true about all sorts of things. I am quite amazed that I am still alive today to reflect on that. I am sure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, know that those in our era were a lot more carefree about our own safety. I think fireworks were a classic area where people were willing to be pretty relaxed about the whole approach.
Now we are in a society where we want to seemingly protect people a lot more vigorously, and I understand there are good reasons for that. We do not want our hospital wards filled up with more people, but I certainly would hope that we go with caution here and not overreact. I know that part of the minister’s consultation process was to have a meeting—I think, north and south. I suspect those meetings will be
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