Page 2436 - Week 08 - Thursday, 6 August 2015
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occur on our roads. The Road Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 will enhance the effectiveness of the road transport legislation and the Crimes Act, which provide our legal framework for achieving road safety. These amendments will improve the administration and enforcement of the road transport legislation.
I table a revised explanatory statement for the bill. This revised statement addresses comments on the bill, helpfully provided by the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety in its scrutiny committee role. The main changes in the explanatory statement include an expanded discussion of the human rights potentially engaged by the vehicle seizure provisions in the road transport legislation. The revised statement also rectifies some incorrect numbering references in the previous statement.
I also notify members that I have written to the Leader of the Opposition to advise of my intention to move an additional amendment at the detail stage of debate. Mr Hanson has provided some comments on that already. I intend to make my comments in the detail stage and focus just on the broader bill at this time. Let me focus for the moment on the amendments made by the current bill. As I say, I will turn to the issues around the late amendment during the detail stage.
Members would be aware of the ACT’s road safety message “Drink or drive”. The first amendment made by the bill supports this message by creating a new offence of drinking alcohol while driving a vehicle. For many years the ACT has had laws which prohibit driving while having over a certain blood alcohol concentration. However, there is an anomaly in our laws in that it is still legal for people to consume alcoholic drinks while they are driving. This is clearly inconsistent with the need to separate drinking and driving and the “Drink or drive” message.
This amendment fixes this gap in the law and reiterates to the community that drinking alcohol and driving do not mix, can lead to devastating consequences and that there must be a clear separation between the two. The amendment will also align the ACT with other jurisdictions which have similar offences including New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.
The bill’s second amendment is to amend the current offence relating to burnouts so that it includes other potentially dangerous driving behaviours such as wheelies, drifting and handbrake turns. The current offence has been interpreted narrowly by the courts, meaning that some drivers who deliberately engage in these behaviours are not being sanctioned. The amendment will ensure that the focus is on driving behaviours that involve the loss of traction of driving wheels, rather than simply on burnouts. This will give effect to the Legislative Assembly’s original intent.
The existing defence applying to a driver’s accidental loss of traction will continue to apply to the amended offence. This will also support police enforcement of safe driver behaviour and better reflects the position adopted by other jurisdictions, with similar approaches applying in both New South Wales and Victoria.
The third amendment made by the bill will exempt police recruits undergoing driving and rider training from having to comply with particular aspects of the road transport legislation. Driver and rider training is an essential part of a police officer’s training
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