Page 135 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 12 February 2020
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These are families who are busy with school drop-offs, families who need to get other people—their family members—to and from hospital, families organising child care, families just doing the shopping and getting to and from work. Occasionally, unexpected events happen, and a couple of minutes grace is a nice way to acknowledge that sometimes things happen that are completely out of your control.
These families who are time poor, who are stretched, who are just going about their everyday business, trying to do the best for their families, have not benefited from a 26 per cent increase in their income, unlike the 26 per cent increase in revenue that the ACT government got in 12 months with the introduction of parking vans. Most of these families do not have a free car park at their workplace either. Let us hope that, with the giving of a little on one hand by the government, with a 10-minute grace period, this may somehow offset the massive revenue take by the government in parking revenue gouging.
This government hope we will be grateful for small parking concessions while they keep increasing parking fees and fines every year. This is something that we can just go ahead and do. It is not something that requires a drawn-out feasibility study. The government have the directorate at their disposal to implement this and make this work. I am sure they have already looked at it in some way. Why hold Canberrans to ransom for even longer? Why not do it now? Madam Speaker, I have an amendment to Ms Le Couteur’s amendment, which I seek advice on.
MADAM SPEAKER: It is my understanding that it is inconsistent. We need to deal with Ms Le Couteur’s amendment; we cannot deal with them together. You would need to seek leave to speak again, should you wish to move your amendment. We will deal with Ms Le Couteur’s amendment first.
MS LAWDER: I will do that. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for the Arts, Creative Industries and Cultural Events, Minister for Building Quality Improvement, Minister for Business and Regulatory Services and Minister for Seniors and Veterans) (11.18): I would like to thank Mr Pettersson for bringing this motion to the Assembly today. The government does have parking rules and undertakes parking enforcement for a variety of reasons: for public safety, for public amenity, to support businesses in Canberra and to ensure equitable access by the community. It is important to understand that there are a range of reasons why there are parking limitations and parking enforcement. Unfortunately, in Ms Lawder’s speech today she has conflated a lot of them into one particular view, which is unhelpful.
When we are looking at time-limited parking areas, as Ms Le Couteur has already noted, Access Canberra inspectors do have and apply a level of discretion when enforcing parking rules. For example, a parking officer who intercepts a motorist committing an offence may issue a warning rather than an infringement, and a warning may be issued in instances where a motorist returns to their vehicle before a parking officer has issued the ticket. For vehicles where the parking time limit has only recently expired, parking officers will generally recognise the position that the
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