Statutes Amendment (Transport Portfolio) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 11 November 2020.)

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (12:06): I rise to speak on the Statutes Amendment (Transport Portfolio) Bill 2020 and indicate that I am the lead speaker for the opposition on this bill. I indicate from the outset that we are inclined, as an opposition, to support the entirety of this bill and its passage through this house because these are largely good measures and in no small part because many of these measures have been on the table for quite some time now. We need to see their speedy passage, I think.

I will go through some of them, and I will be brief. I do not intend to delay the house. I know there are other speakers, and I know we want to get this through today, if possible. As I said, many of these are very sensible measures, the first of which is to extend the blood alcohol concentration presumptive period from two to three hours. For those who do not know, the process is that there is an initial breath analysis—this is alcohol testing—that gives an indication of the blood alcohol concentration. It is not a comprehensive test; it simply gives an indication and enables the police to present that person for proper blood testing.

At the moment, after two hours have elapsed between the breath test and the blood test, there is a rather complicated process by which they back calculate what would have been the blood alcohol content at the time of the stop. I believe the government when they present evidence to us that after three hours that blood alcohol concentration is negligibly different from the two-hour period.

I also believe them when they say that almost 30 per cent of Forensic Science SA's work in this area is related to that third hour, so I think this is a very good efficiency measure, particularly for forensic services, rather than for SAPOL. I think they are under the pump; they probably could do with a bit more funding. I think this is a very good measure in terms of getting more drunk drivers off the road ultimately, which is what we all want.

The second is related to this, and that is to restrict what I am told is the only place in Australia where there is a post-incident consumption defence. This essentially applies if you are in an incident of some sort and you are deemed to have been driving under the influence and some sort of testing takes place. If the person can introduce the doubt in the police officer's mind that perhaps he or she had been drinking a considerable amount of alcohol in between those two points, then there would be a defence to the involvement of alcohol in the initial incident.

This is the only place in Australia where this defence exists. I did not explain it very well to the lawyer, to my learned friend in front of me, but I think it is a very good change. It is a nonsense defence. It is an easy loophole to get into, I think, if you are a seasoned criminal, and I am glad to see the back of it.

Similarly, the use of de-identified blood and oral fluid in non-identifiable research is a really good idea. We have seen over the COVID period a move away from meth towards other synthetic types of drugs, and the statistics are very complicated. By wastewater analysis, we do know, of course, that South Australia has the highest use of meth in Australia despite COVID, but we have seen a move to other synthetic drugs.

This weekend we saw SAPOL do a blitz. Of course, I support that blitz. They found that nearly 10 per cent of drivers tested had either cannabis or methamphetamine in their system. Ten per cent on a random test is a very high incidence when you consider that meth use by any measure is falling across the nation because of COVID.

Clearly, if we consider those two things, we must realise that an awful lot of those drivers who were tested and who did not show signs of using cannabis or methamphetamine must statistically have had in their system any number of synthetic drugs. Drug manufacturing is a very swiftly changing field, so any research we can do to get on top of those things quickly and get more drug drivers off the road is something to be commended.

Similarly, there is enabling nurses to take blood samples. Before this legislation was brought before us, I was not aware that nurses could not, in some instances, take blood. I am happy that that is the case, and we will perhaps go through a little bit of that in the committee stage. It is an obvious efficiency measure and, again, it would enable Forensic Science SA, SAPOL and those people who police the Harbors and Navigation Act and those types of things to do their work much more quickly.

There are, of course, other fairly administrative changes. Enabling parking fees to be paid by smart phone, for instance, is an excellent initiative—I cannot believe we need to legislate to do that, but apparently we do—and then we get to some measures that perhaps the government should have moved on earlier.

I know there are other speakers on this, so I will not dwell on this matter for too long, but the first matter of course is the control of the display of offensive materials on certain vehicles. We are all aware of these offensive and disgusting displays. We are talking about Wicked Campers mostly. I do not care that we name them. Up to this point, they have been free to drive around the streets in broad daylight. When we are taking our kids to school, we see these offensive, degrading to women, messages and images.

I know that the member for Reynell has long been trying to move legislation. We have legislation in this place. I will not dwell on that, of course, but she has been trying to convince the government to move on this for a very long time. I will let her speak further on this, but I am very glad that finally the government has seen the light on this measure. I will let her speak about whether it goes far enough.

Then we come to drug test screening. In May 2018, my very first public act as the shadow minister for police and road safety was to introduce a bill to allow police to search vehicles of persons who have tested positive to a roadside drug test for drugs, which the Road Traffic Act currently prohibits. Unbelievably, the Road Traffic Act prohibits this at the moment. It is very specific about what acts a positive roadside drug test can provide evidence for.

The change that I wanted to make was simply to extend it to the Controlled Substances Act, which would have the effect of allowing police to have both the authority to search for drugs when someone tests positive on a roadside drug test and also to use that initial test—both the breath test and the blood test—as evidence for other offending against the Controlled Substances Act.

I introduced that bill in May 2018. At the time, the transport minister was, of course, the police minister. I believe he spoke against it at the time saying that it was unnecessary. Perhaps more importantly, the Attorney-General, who considers herself the state's premier legal mind, spoke against it in this place saying it was unnecessary. We fast-forward nearly three years and we have a bill before us which, in its last clause, exactly duplicates that bill from May 2018.

It is a double-edged sword. I am pleased that the government has finally seen the light. We have been saying this since May 2018. In fact, we have been saying it longer than that. There was a bill in the previous parliament which failed. We have been saying it and the police have been saying it. The police commissioner is on record. There is a letter to the Budget and Finance Committee in 2019 where the police commissioner makes no bones about it that he is for this measure, and that is why, presumably, we see it included in this bill at this very late stage.

As I said, we are inclined to support this bill, not least because it reflects many of the measures we have been talking about for a very long time now, and I will not stand in the way of its progress any longer.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (12:15): I, too, rise today to speak about particular aspects of the Statutes Amendment (Transport Portfolio) Bill, aspects detailed at clause 22 which relate to the power of the registrar in relation to offensive material displayed on motor vehicles. I am absolutely sure that it is not surprising to many people in this place, nor to many people in our community who have campaigned so hard with me for around two years and three months to rid our roads of the deeply offensive slogans on Wicked Campers vehicles, that I speak about this aspect of the bill before us today.

In speaking today, I register my extreme disappointment that it has taken so long to get to where we are today. The belligerence and petty politics that has underpinned the delay in getting this bill—that I originally introduced to this house—passed has meant that community members have had to put up with this unacceptable filth on our roads. The clauses in this bill before us today in relation to the Registrar's powers to refuse to register or deregister vehicles with slogans which ad standards deem offensive are almost identical, other than one small change which I will come back to, to the clauses in the bill I introduced on two occasions, and there is no excuse, no reason for not passing those original bills.

As I have previously raised in this house many times, Wicked Campers is a national company that rents campervans to backpackers and other tourists and to local people. They are, unfortunately, renowned for their vile and deliberately offensive slogans. The slogans promote disrespect and violence towards women, sexism, racism, homophobia and paedophilia. They demean and objectify women in gender fear and are deeply distressing.

Campaigning against these slogans began when a courageous 11-year-old girl offended by a Wicked Campers slogan that referred to girls as 'sluts', initiated a petition that attracted 126,000 signatures. This and Collective Shout's campaigning prompted Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania, as well as local councils to ban them from their respective jurisdictions. Since then, other councils and music festivals, as well as other jurisdictions have moved to ban them.

On 14 November 2018, I introduced a bill, as mentioned, almost identical to the one before us today to ban these slogans from our roads. After the government prorogued the parliament, 16 months after I originally introduced the Motor Vehicle (Offensive Advertising) Amendment Bill, I reintroduced it at the beginning of last year.

However, the government dragged its heels, adjourning my original bill around 20 times instead of supporting this sensible reform in a timely and bipartisan manner. The then minister, the member for Schubert, told us it was all in hand and that he was leading a national solution. He talked up a big game in the media, and at the transport ministers meeting here in Adelaide in August 2019 he said, and I quote:

We want to make sure that we close down these loopholes, stop the scourge of these offensive advertising and materials on the sides of these campervans…

Unfortunately, this was not acted upon. It was all platitudes and it was simply not true that a national approach was needed. We needed to take action here in this state. This inaction came despite several highly respected domestic violence services, women's organisations, church groups, advocates and many fed up South Australians calling again and again on this government to act. Worse still, I am informed by those who work in those organisations that South Australia, as a result of these delays, is now the destination of choice to register these vehicles after other jurisdictions banned them ahead of us.

Appallingly, people in my own community in Southern Adelaide, after I personally continued to speak in the media and in this place about these horrendous slogans, were subject to them being driven around the Reynell electorate relentlessly. They were spotted in Port Noarlunga, Morphett Vale and along our mid coast. So, here we are, more than two years later, and registration of vehicles with these horrendous slogans is still legal and still befouling South Australian roads. Still these vile vans can turn up at our caravan parks, tourist spots and beaches any time with their tawdry, hateful, awful messages.

Our community is continuing to struggle to confront and end disrespect and violence towards women. It is persistent, it is pervasive and it must be called out wherever and whenever it occurs, and every action possible to end it should be taken in a timely manner. Being serious about preventing and ending disrespect and violence towards women means taking timely action. This government's lack of timely action shows the lack of seriousness with which they treat these issues.

The action they could have taken in this case was so incredibly straightforward: they had a bill presented to the parliament on multiple occasions; they had opportunities to pass it. The bill they have presented now is almost identical, other than the inclusion of a clause that appears to exempt vehicles with offensive election material, a clause we will explore in committee. Why on earth did this government not act to get rid of slogans such as, 'A wife: an attachment you screw on the bed to get the housework done,' or the sinister quote, 'I can already imagine the gaffer tape on your mouth'?

Instead of acting, instead of doing the right thing and acting with bipartisanship, they did not prioritise ending that which disrespects and promotes violence against women. They chose to play petty politics and, in the meantime, South Australian children, individuals and families continue to put up with these vans sullying our roads, our caravan parks and our holiday destinations. These slogans and their accompanying imagery go way beyond what is acceptable. They are utterly offensive by anyone's standards, and it is offensive that this government refused, for more than two years, to do anything whatsoever about them.

It is also offensive that in March last year, when reintroducing the bill and urging those opposite to step up and act to help rid our roads of that which promotes disrespect and violence against women, that I was chastised in this place for repeating the disgusting slogans in here. If they were not good enough to be repeated in here almost a year ago, why did this government enable them to continue to remain on our roads? Again, their lack of action speaks to a complete misunderstanding of the root cause of violence against women, and a complete lack of priority to end it.

Today, those opposite have finally taken Labor's bill and inserted it into this bill. This bill, as did our bill, will expand the powers of the Registrar of Motor Vehicles to take action against a registered vehicle owner. This is done when the registrar is notified by Ad Standards, formerly the Advertising Standards Bureau, that a complaint has been upheld in relation to a vehicle having offensive slogans and/or images advertised upon it. The bill will hopefully mean that those offensive vans cannot be registered here in South Australia, and can also be deregistered.

I wholeheartedly thank Collective Shout for their relentless work towards this moment, together with the YWCA; WIMDOI; the Women's Safety Services South Australia; the Women's Legal Service; all of the member organisations in the Coalition of Women's Domestic Violence Services, now Embolden; Michael O'Connell; the ACL; Soroptimist International; Zonta International; the National Council of Women of South Australia; and so many others for their relentless campaigning on this and for acting to end violence against women.

As community leaders it is always incumbent on every one of us in this place to speak out and act against offensive material that absolutely does not accord with community standards and offends, and to always do whatever we can, whatever is within our sphere of influence to end disrespect and violence against women.

While I welcome the final introduction of this bill and moving forward on this issue, I will remain utterly disappointed about why on earth it has taken so long, and why petty politics would be played on such an important issue. South Australian women and girls deserve better, as does our wider community. This government should have passed Labor's bill in November 2018 and kept this filth off our roads.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (12:26): I would like to thank the members for their contribution to this. It has been a big body of work and a period in the making. I note that the member for Elizabeth raised the fact that a number of these elements were looked at by the previous government in its 16-year reign and they did not pass—in fact, I think his term was they failed to pass when the previous government was in power.

We are here today getting on with this job. Again, I note the interest the member for Elizabeth had in a certain element of this bill. There are a number of elements that we were keen to wrap up in the Statutes Amendments (Transport Portfolio) Bill 2020, to make this a better bill and make it better for South Australia. His point was one that we have been working on, and he has had a keen interest in it, which is around the ability to give police the powers to search a vehicle when there has been a positive drugs test.

I would like to make a couple of points on that. When the member for Elizabeth spoke on this before he indicated a conclusiveness for his wont for a positive test to be an automatic search. When discussing this with the police commissioner that is not what he wanted, and that is why we have made sure we have worked through this to land at this point.

Mr Odenwalder interjecting:

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: The member for Elizabeth says that it is the same as what he has put forward, which is right, yet publicly he has been saying that he wanted a conclusive power, and that was not where we wanted to be. We have worked with the police commissioner and we are here today to deliver this for the people of South Australia. We are glad to do this. I stress the point to both members on the other side: 16 years and you failed to do this, and now we are here delivering for the people of South Australia.

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: The member for Reynell may laugh and think this is not a serious matter. On the one hand she is saying it is serious and here we are delivering and she is—

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Are you looking for more factual facts, member for Reynell, because I know that is what you have been on—

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —as opposed to the Labor facts that you like to roll out. We will deliver you some more factual facts as we deliver more for the people.

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Reynell will cease interjecting. The minister might resume his seat for a moment.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my right!

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Reynell is called to order.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my right! When the interjections cease, the minister will resume his remarks in closing the debate. I remind members that there will be an opportunity to explore these questions should the house go into committee shortly. The minister has the call and he is entitled to be heard in silence. The Minister for Infrastructure and Transport.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Thank you, sir, and I appreciate your protection. Just to outline that point, we are very keen again to progress this and be delivering this bill after 16 years of inaction.

I just want to go over those points I was making about the drug test screening and working with police on this. I reiterate the point that the current search powers in the Road Traffic Act are not defective; however, there is no power in the Road Traffic Act to rely on the results of a drug screening to undertake a search in order to enforce an offence against the Controlled Substances Act.

If passed, this amendment will not provide an automatic authority for a police officer to search the person or their motor vehicle when they return a positive roadside drug screening test, as I have suggested the member for Elizabeth has indicated through the media. Instead, the amendment will allow the results of the test to be used as an additional factor in forming reasonable suspicion, and therefore the power to search the person or their vehicle in relation to an offence against the Controlled Substances Act. I think we are landing in a really good place, and I look forward to the opposition's support on progressing the bill.

As for the member for Reynell, again I thank her for her contribution. I think where we are landing with this is a very positive thing. I picked this up from the previous minister, who did some very good work to make sure there was a national approach. We were in the situation where, I am informed, if there was no national approach and we put these laws in place, and let's say Victoria did not put these laws in place, then those vehicles would be free to drive over into South Australia and we would still have the same outcome that we are trying to prevent. By having a national approach, by having everyone agree to this—

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Reynell will cease interjecting. The member for Reynell is warned. The minister is entitled to be heard in silence.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Thank you for your protection, sir, because we are here trying to get on with this and deliver what we think is the right thing for the people of South Australia. I was just outlining the work at the national level.

I appreciate the good work of the minister prior to me, who did that good body of work at the national level to get everyone on the same page so that laws would be put in place across every state and jurisdiction to close the loophole that could have been created by one state doing it and one state not. Vehicles could be registered in the state without this legislation and travel across borders into other states, therefore nullifying the outcome we are looking for here.

When you have to get all the states together, when you have to get national agreement, when you have put it on the table in that forum, it can take a little bit of time. We would all love to be able to snap our fingers and have things done yesterday, I totally agree with that, but getting it done right is really important. I commend the previous minister for doing that.

We are here today delivering this bill in our first term of government. I note that after 16 years Labor did nothing about this, but we are here delivering it to the people of South Australia. With that, I commend the bill to the house and look forward to moving this very efficiently and quickly through the committee stage so that we can deliver this for the people of South Australia and get a really good outcome for everyone.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

Mr ODENWALDER: By way of preliminary comments, I do not intend to delay this bill at all; I cannot speak for anyone else here, but I do not intend to unnecessarily delay this bill. These are important measures and I think we have canvassed them publicly quite well. I do have a couple of questions on clause 1. I believe the member for Reynell has a couple of questions on clause 1.

In fact, my first question on clause 1 is simply to clarify something. I understand the changes this bill is making to the Road Traffic Act in terms of the blood alcohol content and those types of changes to the Road Traffic Act. The bill also makes lengthy references to the Harbors and Navigation Act and to the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) Act. This is hopefully to expedite the process, but are there any changes in either of those acts that are not the same as the changes that we are making to the Road Traffic Act, if you understand my question?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: No.

Mr ODENWALDER: So the processes that we are changing in the Road Traffic Act are the same that apply to trains, boats and that sort of thing?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Effectively, yes.

Ms HILDYARD: I also seek clarification. I am intrigued by the minister's comments about the need for a national approach, given that we are dealing with state legislation and that each state has to change its legislation in relation to the matters in clause 22 that vehicles with offensive slogans cannot be registered. I am just intrigued to find out a little more about what New South Wales and Western Australia are doing in relation to their state legislation.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: I am informed that New South Wales has just assented some legislation along the lines of the Queensland legislation, which I think people are mirroring off. Again, this is something that was picked up by the previous minister. I am not 100 per cent sure about WA, but I think you mentioned in your speech about all the states coming together and talking about this and having that national approach so that they are all heading in that same direction, which is to circumvent the problem as I outlined before. We want to try to circumvent the problem.

The aim is to have everyone come on board with similar or the same legislation, as I think I outlined before just to be overly clear, because we do not want to have one state that does not change the legislation so that vehicles there can still do what it is that we want to stop them doing and just drive across the country.

As an example, and it may not be a good one, but if vehicles are registered in a state outside South Australia and they are still offensive, as we have been outlining, and that state does not change its laws, they can drive them across to South Australia. Likewise, we do not want South Australia to do that, and that is why we are here today changing this law, making sure that hopefully everyone is in the same camp.

Ms HILDYARD: If the need for a national approach is being held up as a reason for not having previously passed these provisions at the first opportunity in November 2018, and I think that is your proposition—that there was a need for a national approach and that is why it has taken so long—could you please talk a little more about the fact that Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania have already moved legislation that is identical to this, certainly in Queensland's case and very similar to it in the case of Tasmania and the ACT.

Could you explain why their legislation, particularly Queensland's given that it is identical to what was previously proposed by Labor and given that it is identical to what is in this bill, did not need this national approach? Why were they able to move forward and both introduce, pass and have operational this legislation?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: I am informed that Queensland was the original state to adopt this legislation. They kicked it off, for want of a better term, because that is where Wicked Campers are based and that is where the bulk of the campers were coming from. That was then used as a model that has been rolled out across the board.

Ms HILDYARD: I can pick that point up in other ways. What does the minister think about the fact that Wicked Campers and those offensive slogans have been able to be driven around South Australia—including in my community in the south, which is not too far from your own community—for the past two years and three months? How does the minister respond to the fact that they could have been stopped here in South Australia, whether there was a national approach in place or not? They could have been stopped from being driven around here in South Australia two years and three months ago; what is your response to that?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: We have a bill before the house that we are debating right now. I would like to see it moved through as quickly as possible.

Clause passed.

Clauses 2 to 15 passed.

Clause 16.

Mr ODENWALDER: Given what the minister said about the other acts that this bill will change, I have skipped through all the references to blood tests and so on, and nurses versus medical practitioners, etc., and come straight to clause 16. This makes reference to complaints and information. The way that police used to operate was that charges were laid either on a complaint or an information, depending on how important or whether it was an indictable or summary offence and which court would initially hear it and so on.

It is lucky the police minister is here because he can furnish us with this wisdom. That, I understand, has changed in recent years so that all charges are now laid on information, for efficiency I imagine. Can the minister first of all tell us when that change was made in SAPOL policy?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: I am informed there was a change to the Criminal Procedure Act, but I do not have the detail of the date, so I am happy to take that on notice.

Mr ODENWALDER: My next question follows from that then. Given this change—and I appreciate you do not know exactly when this change happened, but presumably it was a while ago; I cannot remember the bill coming through the house, so it must have been quite a while ago—and that we are only changing this reference in the act now, have there been any prosecutions or charges that have failed as a result of the confusion over a complaint or an information on which the charge is laid, if you understand the question?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: I am informed that potentially what you are referring to is just the ability for parliamentary counsel to take into consideration that there are the two forms and they overlay now, if you like. So, relatively, I think this is an opportunity for parliamentary counsel to tidy that up.

Mr ODENWALDER: As a point of clarification, no prosecutions have fallen over as a result of any confusion over whether the charge was laid on a complaint or an information in the interim?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Not to my knowledge, and I am told theoretically that should not happen because the courts can intersperse, if you like, the forms.

Clause passed.

Clauses 17 and 18 passed.

Clause 19.

Mr ODENWALDER: This clause is about making suspensions equivalent to disqualifications, in terms of the period during which a person can hold either a learner's permit or, later on in clause 24, a provisional permit, etc. Just to put it beyond doubt, what this clause is saying is that, just like a disqualification, if your licence is suspended while you are on some provisional or learner's permit, that learner's permit or provisional permit is extended by that period of time for which the suspension stands; is that right? This is just for clarification.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: The short answer is yes, but can I also take the opportunity to thank you. It was remiss of me not to thank you for expeditiously passing through the other key amendments that we have to extend the blood alcohol concentration presumptive period from two to three hours, to restrict the post-incident consumption defence and to enable nurses to take the blood samples. That is very, very good of you. The way you have outlined that, regarding the suspensions and disqualifications, is correct.

Mr ODENWALDER: This is going to be a stupid question, but does this currently apply to motorbike licences too?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Yes.

Clause passed.

Clauses 20 and 21 passed.

Clause 22.

Ms HILDYARD: Firstly, generally in relation to the clause as a whole, I am curious as to whether the minister has considered any penalties for companies who repeatedly are in breach of ad standards and, as a consequence, are repeatedly either having vehicles deregistered or having the registrar refuse to register their vehicles.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: As we have outlined with this, the principle here was to follow the legislation that is in place in Queensland, which you have referred to as being the precursor to this. That is what everybody has done, and the penalty of deregistering the vehicle was seen as a sufficient enough penalty; I am led to believe that the vehicle cannot be reregistered, so that is a fairly significant penalty. We have followed that Queensland legislation, as was discussed, and, I am told, agreed to nationally.

Ms HILDYARD: Regarding clause 22(7), could you please elaborate on what you would envisage the electoral advertisements might contain that would not be subject to this particular clause? I am trying to understand why that is there and what you are envisaging that will deal with.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: I am led to believe that this was inserted by parliamentary counsel to comply with the Electoral Commission regulations. The perspective that was put on this was they cannot see why anyone who was to mark up their car for electoral purposes would have anything on there that was untoward unless they were to have the name of their party or something like that. Again, that would be covered under the Electoral Commission regulations as far as I am concerned. For example, if you were to badge up your car at election time and have your name and a slogan or message or something like that on your car, it would not be expected for that to be offensive.

Ms HILDYARD: Just so I understand correctly—and I am really trying to understand the need for this clause, given what you have just said—could you explain why this needs to be in here and also how this clause interacts with the provisions in the Electoral Act? I am specifically talking about the state act.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: As has been outlined to me—and the example I can perhaps use—if someone did see your car, as I described before, which had your message on there or whatever else and they were from another political party and thought that was offensive and reported it to Ad Standards, that is not really the essence of what we are trying to do here. It takes out that political argy-bargy, I suppose, and puts it in the realm of the Electoral Act to cover that off. Someone from another political party might see your car and think that is offensive; likewise, if I did it with my car, they might find it offensive, send it to Ad Standards and it would get caught up in this legislation. It is to alleviate that.

Clause passed.

Clauses 23 to 46 passed.

Clause 47.

Mr ODENWALDER: I just want to use this opportunity, since we are now talking about the Road Traffic Act, for the minister to again put on the record the issue of complaints and informations. I want to be absolutely clear on what he is saying. There has been a change from the use of complaints and informations as two separate ways to lay charges. Since some indeterminate point in the last government, charges are all laid on informations. I want to be absolutely clear that, from the time the Criminal Procedures Act was changed in order to lay charges always on informations up to this point, where we are changing the definition in this act, no prosecutions have fallen over because of any confusion about how the charge was laid.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Just to clarify, as it has been explained to me, for the two forms you outlined, if it was put on the first form, then it would go down that path. If it was put on the other form—if there was a mix up with the forms, I am told the courts just have the ability to then say, 'Well, we will remove that one and put it in on the other form.' From the information I am given, there is nothing that jumps out to say that has caused any problems in the past. Of course, now it is just the one form and the court determines which line it goes down, for want of a better term. So, from the information I am given, there is no knowledge.

I understand the question you are asking and appreciate it, but from the people I have here giving me advice there is nothing that jumps out to say, 'It happened at this time or at this front.' That is mostly because of the fact that the court has the ability to withdraw and then put in the other form if the mistake you are alluding to did take place.

Clause passed.

Clauses 48 to 53 passed.

Clause 54.

Mr ODENWALDER: This refers to the change in the presumptive period from two hours to three hours. I hope that the minister will be flexible enough to apply this to the other two acts to which this applied previously. I wonder if the minister—he may need to take this on notice—could inform the committee what percentage of the total procedures performed were performed within that two-hour window?

We have talked about the procedures occurring after that two-hour window, and 30 per cent of them occur between two to three hours after. I am wondering what the percentage of the total procedures is that have been performed in that first two-hour period. As a percentage, how many have been performed without the need for any back calculation?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: I am told that fundamentally it is 30 per cent, as you pointed out. So 70 per cent is the remainder, obviously, so you would suggest that is where it comes from. I am told there are some that can be taken as outliers. Fundamentally, 70 per cent is the figure because the others would be taken as outliers and that is very rare. Equal to that, I am told to actually go back and back calculate the exact figure would take a work through Forensic Science. Given that 30 per cent is outside that, 70 per cent would fundamentally fall inside that. I am advised there could be a very small sliver that falls at the extreme outside.

Mr ODENWALDER: Just to clarify—and I take it you do not have the actual figures and I accept that—it is 70 per cent within the two-hour period and another 30 per cent within the three-hour period. That brings us to 100 per cent, more or less, and then after that three-hour period, very few procedures are done?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: That is what I am informed. It would be a bit less than 70 per cent, if we were to go away and calculate the figure, but I am told it is very minimally less than 70 per cent, so to speak.

Clause passed.

Clauses 55 to 63 passed.

Clause 64.

Mr ODENWALDER: This is the drug search clause, and hopefully the minister can give me a succinct answer. Whether I agree or not, I understood what he said in his opening remarks about what this clause does, but my simple question remains: whatever the clause does, if it is identical to a clause in a bill which is still in this house, which I understand it would be unparliamentary to refer to, why has it taken so long for this to come to parliament now? If the police are saying they want it, why has it taken so long, given that it is the same?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Again, for clarity, we have the entire bill here before the house. There are a number of things the police were very keen to move through with this bill and, with your kind indulgence, we have gone through those and you have given them your support, which I do really appreciate. That is all wrapped up in this bill. We are moving it through now and we are very happy to be doing that.

I think the context, as I outlined at the start, was the sentiment that there would be automatic authority from a bill, and that was what was put forward in some media commentary and also in some speeches here in this place. We wanted to seek clarity as part of this whole bill, that we had it in a space that we were very comfortable with. There were a number of elements that we wanted to progress all at once, and we made that very clear all the way through. We introduced it at the end of last year. We are in a great position now here to progress it, and we are very happy to be doing that.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.