Page 131 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 12 February 2020
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
This motion calls on the government to investigate a more sensible and compassionate approach to parking infringements. This approach would ultimately be beneficial to the community, especially those who most suffer the impacts of infringements. Our community will, I think, be well served by a little leeway when it comes to parking fines.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.00): I move:
In paragraph (2), add “, and report back to the Assembly by the last sitting day in June 2020.”.
The Greens will be supporting Mr Pettersson’s motion. One effect of this motion will be to codify what is, to all accounts, the current practice of parking officers. One only has to leave this building and walk in either direction along London Circuit to find an ACT government surface car park. If you spend any time in them, as all MLAs here do, given that our car spaces are in one of them, you will have seen parking officers at work—I possibly less than most, as I normally catch the bus to the Assembly. My observation of parking officers at work is that they do not appear to issue parking infringement notices overzealously in the surface car parks.
There are some other conversations, I appreciate, about some instances at school fetes and things. But that is appreciably a different question. On the contrary, the parking officers tend to have a good look around and if they see someone buying a ticket at one of the machines or racing back to their car from wherever they are, they do not generally issue a ticket, because it is just not an instant process. I have also never heard of someone getting a ticket for being a just few minutes over their time limit, although I am sure it happens. There are some particularly efficient black-letter law people, process-oriented people, in the world, and some of them must be parking officers.
The parking operations compliance framework, which guides the work of parking officers, states that the appropriate enforcement response is:
… determined based on the risk, or realised consequences. This allows a degree of flexibility to ensure the right regulatory approach for the right situation.
It goes on to say:
Conduct which contravenes the legislation is considered on a case-by-case basis and with consideration given to the circumstances of the conduct. Access Canberra will apply the most appropriate regulatory tool to address the conduct and to achieve the desired regulatory outcome which, depending on the circumstances, may include: a warning or a Parking Infringement Notice (PIN).
Be that as it may, I am sure that having an extra 10 minutes grace will be helpful to some people. We have all been in situations where the queue we were in moved at a snail’s pace, the doctor was running late, the toddler had a meltdown or whatever. But in most of these instances, 10 minutes grace is not going to be enough to solve your problems.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video