Road Traffic (South Eastern Freeway Offences) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (16:35): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Road Traffic Act 1961 and for other purposes. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (16:36): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I rise to speak on the Road Traffic (South Eastern Freeway Offences) Amendment Bill 2020. You will recall that in late 2019 this parliament passed my private member's bill, the Statues Amendment (Suspension of South Eastern Freeway Offences) Bill 2019, to address a number of unintended consequences of the new South Eastern Freeway laws.

It was important to urgently get that legislation through, as we did, because so many people were unfairly and unintentionally losing their licence for a first offence under those laws. However, that bill did not completely fix all the defects with the law that are now the subject of this bill.

As you know, the South Eastern Freeway carries in excess of 50,000 vehicles every day, 4,400 of these estimated to be heavy vehicles. Sadly, in 2014 we witnessed a number of serious truck crashes on the down track of the freeway that involved large rigid and articulated trucks losing control due to a range of factors, including excessive speed failure or improper use of braking systems, truck defects and driver error.

These accidents resulted in the loss of many lives and many more cases of serious injury and trauma that were investigated by the state Deputy Coroner, Anthony Schapel. In response to these serious accidents, the government of the day enacted a new suite of legislative measures applying to a short section of the South Eastern Freeway and in doing so implied that the entire suite of those laws had come from the recommendations of the Coroner. On 11 December 2019, the state Deputy Coroner confirmed in writing to the Minister for Transport, the Hon. Stephan Knoll, that:

In fact, the coronial recommendations to which you (the Minister) reportedly referred were concerned with trucks over 4.5 tonnes, the thrust of the recommendations being that between Crafers and Urrbrae all heavy trucks both rigid and articulated, and regardless of the number of axles possessed, should be subject to the same legal requirements. I advise that the Court has not made any recommendation in relation to small buses in terms of speed limit, low gear selection requirements, the lane in which they should be driven or penalties for infractions of the same.

The minister has been well aware of the defects in this law since the regulations commenced on 2 April 2019 and came into effect on 1 May 2019 when these specialised speed cameras, able to detect these offences on that section of the South Eastern Freeway, were finally installed and became fully operational.

The new cameras could now detect trucks and buses under the new laws, not just vehicles with five or more axles. Drivers of those larger rigid and articulated vehicles with five or more axles have been subject to this legislation since 2014 and thus are highly aware of these offences. Not so the newly-caught smaller truck and bus operators who were unaware of these laws that started to impact unsuspecting drivers on 1 May 2019.

While my private member's bill in 2019 dealt with the most immediate issues related to the severe loss of licence penalty for a first offence, this bill seeks to address the state Deputy Coroner's advice that buses were never the subject of the Coroner's recommendation. In his correspondence, the state Deputy Coroner refers to Mr Darren Coull, a very successful operator of a small fleet of tourist buses, who raised concerns with the Coroner that the laws not only captured buses unintentionally but also required buses to drive at slow speed in the same lane as the large articulated and rigid trucks, often sandwiched between two enormous trucks of over eight tonnes, for a very slow stressful trip being tailgated down this specific section of the freeway.

It is the opinion of expert drivers and trainers that it is only a matter of time before these small buses are mown down by trucks that they are forced to share one lane with. Mr Coull tells me that his business has been adversely affected, with a $25,000 fine because he elected not to disadvantage his poor unsuspecting driver/employee who would have lost his licence and hence his livelihood under the mandatory loss of licence provisions.

My bill of late last year removed this mandatory loss of licence for the first offence but the state Deputy Coroner's letter and Mr Coull and many other constituents' experiences highlighted how buses were still an issue that needs to be addressed. We still have a huge number of volunteer bus drivers, hirers of small budget 14-seater buses, who were told that they did not need a special licence as they were considered to be the same as a car, and small tourism operators who are struggling with the dual negative effects of the South Australian bushfires and now coronavirus (COVID-19) who are still unintentionally captured by this law.

My bill fixes this by removing all buses from this legislation. They will still be subject to other special road rules that apply to buses but they will not be caught by this law that applies only to this small section of freeway. The other issue that my bill addresses is that it restores judicial discretion in regard to matters where the driver or owner elects to be prosecuted. Expert traffic lawyers have pointed out to me that the discretion that magistrates commonly have, where a cancellation of licence is a possible penalty, should be restored in the interests of justice.

The hundreds of constituents who have come to me and, I know, to other members in this place have demonstrated that some judicial discretion needs to exist given the seriousness of the penalty still applicable, particularly for second and subsequent offences. As many have commented, the intentions of this law in regard to heavy trucks were very good but they needed to be confined to trucks. The ongoing unintended consequences make this very bad law that needs to be fixed.

I have also written to the police commissioner, pointing out to him that it appears that he also has a discretionary power to waive fines in certain circumstances. I am yet to hear a response, but I understand he is seeking legal opinion. With those comments, I commend the bill to this chamber.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.T. Ngo.