Page 1640 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 3 June 2014
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as there are protections for information collected under security and intelligence legislation and the enforcement and intelligence bodies serve an important function. It also points out that the Australian Law Reform Commission has reviewed exemptions such as this and recommended that they should be maintained.
One further comment I would make on the bill is that during the in-principle debate I raised the issue of the changes to the Office of the Information Commissioner occurring through the federal budget. There will no longer be an Information Commissioner, and the Privacy Commissioner will be relocated to the Human Rights Commission. I understand that JACS officials have spoken to the Privacy Commissioner and he has assured them that there is no impairment of his capacity to provide privacy services to the ACT.
I think it will be important to closely monitor this service and in the medium term to assess whether this drives the need for the ACT to establish its own specific privacy commissioner and privacy office or whether we can continue to access the services of the commonwealth agency in light of the changes the commonwealth government is making to its arrangements at the federal level.
Amendments agreed to.
Remainder of bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Road Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2014
Debate resumed from 15 May 2014, on motion by Mr Corbell:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.21): The opposition will be supporting this bill in principle today. However, I foreshadow that the opposition will be seeking leave to move two amendments in the detail stage. These amendments relate to the aggravating factor involving vulnerable road users and the aggravating factor of exceeding the speed limit by 30 per cent.
The bill introduces an aggravated version of the offence of furious, reckless or dangerous driving in the Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) Act 1999 and it also implements a consequential amendment arising from the passage of the Road Transport (Alcohol and Drugs) Amendment Bill 2013 to allow a police officer to issue an immediate suspension notice when they charge a person with refusing to undertake a drug or alcohol screening test.
I have spoken in this place before about the issues caused by people driving dangerously, and I think we all understand the impacts of that. It is a reality that drivers will sometimes take reckless actions and make poor decisions which can cause life-shattering circumstances. Our police have a challenging task of having to deal with those irresponsible actions by some drivers, as do other staff, such as ambulance officers and emergency staff in hospitals.
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