Page 5722 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010

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MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Land and Property Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (4.41), in reply: I thank members for their contributions and for their expressions of support for this important legislation. It certainly is important and even a brief look at any of the statistics in relation to the role which alcohol plays in road accidents and road deaths confirms just what a serious issue the issue of drinking and driving within the ACT is.

That has been commented on by previous contributors to this debate. We are averaging in the order of 1,500 drink-driving offences each year within the ACT that are detected. One knows that that is simply the detection rate and there would be a far greater number of people regularly drinking and driving. Most concerningly, around 30 per cent of all drink-driving offenders, those that are detected, are repeat offenders.

It is as a result of the continuing level of road deaths; whilst it is the lowest ratio of road deaths of any jurisdiction in Australia, it is still an appalling human toll. Whilst it seems perhaps unnecessarily pragmatic to look at road deaths and road crashes in terms other than just the human cost, the tragedy individually and for families and friends, it does come also at an enormous economic cost to the community.

We have tried a number of initiatives over the years, of course. We change our laws incrementally and progressively. This law reform process began in 2008, with the distribution of a detailed discussion paper. It has been a genuinely consultative process that has been running since the development of the discussion paper in 2008, the establishment of a reference group and a number of roundtables and a determined effort to deal and engage with all of the experts across the spectrum in the ACT. This legislation is a result of that very extensive consultative process that the government has engaged in over the last two-and-a-bit years.

I thank members for their contributions and for their support of this important legislation.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Detail stage

Clauses 1 to 41, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 42.

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