Page 5239 - Week 12 - Thursday, 28 October 2010
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important to ensure that there is adequate capacity to accommodate all persons required to complete the course in a timely way so that they are able to be issued a driver licence once eligible to hold one.
Accordingly, the relevant provisions of the bill have a 12-month delayed commencement to allow for requirements such as the content, structure and duration of approved courses to be developed. The legislative provisions are sufficiently flexible to allow different courses to be approved for different situations. For example, a more detailed course may be approved for repeat offenders and high-range first offenders and a shorter course for low-range first offenders. As with the current ADFACT sober driver course, participants will be responsible for meeting their own course costs.
Apart from the measures in this bill to deter drink driving and provide for alcohol awareness education, there are some other amendments that have been included to improve the administration of the drink-driving legislation. Given the time, I will not go into these in any detail at this time. Finally in relation to drink-driving provisions, the bill includes a new provision for a register of approved operators of breath analysis devices. This provision should assist in enabling police to manage and monitor the status of police officers as approved operators of breath analysis devices. It replaces the more unwieldy existing arrangements which have resulted in the details of the approved operators only being able to be ascertained by reference to a series of instruments. These arrangements contributed to a drink-driving matter being dismissed earlier this year where it was established that the police officer using the breath analysing instrument, though properly trained, had not been properly appointed. (Extension of time granted.)
One noteworthy change that has been made to the drink-driving reforms following the withdrawal of the earlier bill and the development of this bill is to correct an oversight in that earlier bill, arising from the remaking of the principal drink-driving offence. As members would be aware, since the adoption by the ACT of the Criminal Code, through the Criminal Code Act 2002, as offence provisions are remade, the opportunity is taken to ensure that they are remade in terms which accommodate the application of the Criminal Code. This includes specifying the fault elements or, where applicable, that strict liability applies to the physical elements of the offence and any specific defences that may be available in addition to those available under the Criminal Code. The principal drink-driving offence in the ACT will be a strict liability offence, in line with current practice in the territory and across Australia.
As well as reintroducing the drink-driving reforms previously introduced to this Assembly, the bill includes a number of new provisions to support an effective random drug-driving scheme because, despite repeated warnings by the Chief Minister to members that Mr Hanson’s bill would not work and that such complex legislation needs thorough consultation and review to ensure it will work in the field and that our law enforcement officials can physically carry out tests, the opposition and the crossbench did not listen.
Consultation with the agencies which will have responsibility for implementing Liberal-Green legislation, primarily ACT Policing and ACT Health, and discussions
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