Page 865 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2012
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There are minor amendments in the bill that clarify the application of automatic disqualification provisions where a person is subject to a non-conviction order. By way of background, section 18(2) of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005 already provides that when a court makes a non-conviction order it can make any ancillary order that it could make if it had convicted the person of the offence. Significantly, a driver licence disqualification is an ancillary order of the type mentioned in section 18(2) of the Crimes (Sentencing) Act 2005.
The amendments in this bill ensure that the automatic licence disqualification provisions in section 62 and 63 of the Road Transport (General) Act 1999 apply to a person who is found guilty of a relevant offence—that is, a person who is subject to a non-conviction order—in the same way that those provisions apply to a person who is convicted of the same type of offence.
The ACT road safety strategy and its action plan address strategic road safety goals and objectives through an integrated approach using a range of education, encouragement, engineering, enforcement, evaluation and support measures. The amendments contained in this bill are part of a continuing process to ensure that ACT legislation covering traffic enforcement is effective and up to date, making our roads safer for all. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Detail stage
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (11.18): I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 964].
My amendment would remove section 52B(5), which provides that a person directed to remove a head covering may request permission to remove the item in front of a police officer or authorised person of the same sex and/or to remove the item in a place or manner that affords that person reasonable privacy. Subsection 58B(4) requires the police officer to take reasonable steps to comply with the request.
However, subsection 58B(5)—which is the section I am seeking to remove—qualifies the requirement to take reasonable steps. It says that the failure of a police officer to comply with a reasonable request to accommodate a person wearing a head covering for cultural or religious reasons does not affect the validity of anything done by the officer under the section. Nor does a failure of the police officer to comply affect the liability of a person who commits an offence of failing to comply with a direction to remove a head covering.
The effect is that there is no possibility of a dispute about whether a police officer had taken reasonable steps. In the Greens’ view, the scrutiny committee reasonably raised
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