EXPIATION NOTICES

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:50): I move:

That this house calls on the government to review the manner in which expiation notices are issued and reviewed, including having an independent panel of experts to review contested expiation notices.

Again, I am talking in general terms relating to the issuing of expiation notices, which are not just issued for traffic matters, although that would be the main area in which they are issued.

I do not know whether any members here have had the pleasure of receiving an expiation notice, but I am sure that some have received one and they probably do not want to identify themselves. When someone is pulled over for a traffic matter, what they get at that time is not the complete expiation notice, and I do not know whether members realise that: they get the top part of the notice, which is very simple information—the name and address of the person, the alleged offence, licence number, vehicle details and the due date for payment, and that is signed by the issuing officer with their police ID number.

In many cases, it does not matter that the person who is alleged to have committed an offence does not get the complete notice, but I believe they should. I have spoken even as recently as Sunday to two traffic police officers who said to me they would not have a problem with issuing the complete notice at the time because they have to fill it out, anyway. The rest of the notice, what you might call the bottom half, lists the details of the offence. Those details can be critical in some cases, although not in all. Those details on the bottom half of the form are currently provided only if someone challenges the matter in court.

About six or seven months after the alleged offence has occurred, the person contesting the matter in court will get the rest of the expiation notice, which will have the precise details of not just where the offence occurred but also where the officer was, the time of the offence, the precise details of the road conditions, the amount of traffic present, whether the person was breath tested, the weather conditions and all those things. The officer has to fill that out at the time anyway, and I am suggesting that the complete notice should be issued at the time of the alleged offence.

It can be critical, when people want to contest it, if they do not have that detailed information. For example, if they wanted to have witnesses who were at the location, seven months after the event the chance of finding someone who was there is pretty remote. Likewise, under the Expiation of Offences Act, you only have a limited time if you want to write in and challenge aspects of the expiation. I do not know whether members realise that. For example, you can write in and give a reason why you regard the matter as trifling or specify other circumstances. If you do not get the detail until seven months later, you are well and truly past the time—I think it is 21 days but I would have to check that—in which you can write in about your expiation notice.

As to the other aspect in this motion, it has been put to me by one of our highly respected technical experts, Les Felix (who is a police calibration expert who does work around Australia), that, instead of what often ends up in the courts, we should have an independent panel of experts who can look at contested expiation notices. Some people have said that they could pay an extra amount to have their expiation notice considered by an independent panel; others ask why should they because, as citizens, they should be able to challenge something without having to pay an extra amount.

In New South Wales, they do this already. In South Australia, the police check or respond to a challenged expiation notice, which is not appropriate because you are going back to Caesar to ask Caesar to check, validate and adjudicate on the notice they have already issued. In New South Wales, that does not happen: there if you challenge an expiation it goes to a different section of government, which looks at the notice to see whether there is merit in the challenge. It is fair and reasonable that the contested expiation notice be looked at by someone other than the people issuing it. I do not agree with the people issuing the notices being the judge and jury on an expiation.

If the government wants transparency and fairness in the justice system, then an independent panel is the way to go. If they did that, contested expiations in court would drop dramatically because you would have a panel made up of a traffic engineer or people like that, and they could say that there was merit in the challenge and determine that the expiation notice be waived.

There are a whole lot of benefits in this system. The main benefit would be in terms of fairness, that the person accused gets the details relating to the accusation and the complete expiation notice at the time. It will not cost any more or take any longer because the officer issuing it, whether a police officer or another authorised officer, have to do it there or then anyway. The police I spoke to on the weekend said that, if a person was asked why they were speeding, they would be happy if they signed to say that it was an accurate record of their conversation: that is an even better approach.

In conclusion, I ask the police minister, the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney to look at the current expiation notice system, which has been in place for a long time, to see whether it can be improved and made fairer and less costly for individual citizens and the taxpayer because of the costs imposed on the court by dealing with an increasing number of people challenging expiation notices. If the complete notice can be issued at the time of the alleged offence, everyone will be a winner. I commend the motion to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.