Driving Offences

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (14:46): I seek to give a brief explanation before asking a question of the Attorney-General about bail loopholes.

Leave granted.

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO: A driver on bail for causing death by dangerous driving prior to the August 2022 law change has reportedly been involved in a second serious accident that caused injury to three people, due to him allegedly failing to keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front. He was also charged with driving an unregistered vehicle. A legislation change in August 2022 now revokes a person's licence whilst on bail pending prosecution for causing death by dangerous driving. It is reported that the long period of time between the first incident, his plea and the trial date is the result of an ongoing backlog in the District Court's workload. My questions to the Attorney-General are:

1. Is he aware of this loophole?

2. Will he seek to remedy it so that when people are previously charged with death by dangerous driving, they do have their licence revoked as intended?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:47): I thank the honourable member for her question. As I have said a number of times here, the safety of the community is of utmost importance to the state government and we have undertaken very significant reform to strengthen laws, particularly in relation to dangerous driving. Obviously I won't comment on an individual matter before the courts, but I am very happy to comment more generally.

The honourable member is entirely right: new laws were introduced by this government and have been passed by this parliament. The immediate loss of licence provisions have also been expanded. I am very pleased to say that the new laws mean there is much greater scope for immediate loss of licence. The honourable member will remember the debate we had on these laws in relation to the tragic death of Sophia Naismith.

Of course, laws come into place at a point in time. The immediate loss of licence scheme commenced, I think, a number of weeks before there were other incidents that occurred, and it is a highly unusual thing—we do it occasionally, and reserve it for the most necessary of circumstances—to make retrospective laws. It is a pretty fundamental principle that with the criminal laws we have, as a general rule, people know what the behaviour is and what the consequences of their behaviour may be. Unfortunately, when we pass laws and they come into effect, there will always be a point in time when the behaviour that occurred before those law changes are made and come into effect will attract what the previous penalty was.

I understand the nature of the question. I wouldn't characterise it as a loophole. I would characterise it as: this is when the laws came in, and any behaviour after that time will be subject to the new regime in terms of loss of licence.