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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-04-29 Daily Xml
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STATUTES AMENDMENT (TRANSPORT PORTFOLIO) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

(Continued from page 2909.)

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (15:55): As I was saying before seeking leave to continue my remarks, I cannot understand—as I said in relation to the previous bill—why this bill seeks to amend the expiation notice provisions, with them to be fixed by regulation. We on this side of the house would oppose that very strongly, on principle, always.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

Mr VENNING: No, they should not be. We are very much opposed to that. That is probably the most important clause that we oppose. I do not think it is right to put all the power with the minister in this case, and I think if any amendments need to be made to the act regarding expiations and level of fines the matter should be brought back to the parliament, because otherwise it gives the minister carte blanche to just ramp up all conditions and fines and nobody can do anything about it, apart from the house calling it back.

I am also concerned that those people who are not law breakers or criminals are going to be unfairly punished for something that they may have just overlooked. They should not be treated the same as a person who has deliberately never registered, and often never licensed. The two should be treated as quite different.

I am aware of a case where a gentleman was driving his wife's car. The wife received a registration notice for a Holden station wagon. It showed that the vehicle needed to be reregistered by the 26th of the month. The wife assumed that she had been sent a second renewal notice for her husband's Holden station wagon, as they had already registered his car, which was always due on the 26th. Thinking that a mistake had been made and that she had been sent a second notice after she had reregistered her husband's vehicle, the wife filed the notice and thought nothing more of it.

The wife's vehicle was a Holden Cruze, which, unbeknown to the couple, was classified as a Holden station wagon, and was also due for registration on the same date, the 26th. However, the couple were not aware of the coinciding registration dates, and classification of the wife's car, as the vehicle was new, and it was the first time they were required to register it.

A short while later the husband, whilst driving her car, was pulled over by the police for driving an unregistered vehicle. It was at that time five days out of registration. This man was a government employee and had never had a driving or any other offence to his name. He was made to attend court where he explained to the judge what had happened. The judge was apparently surprised that the case had come before the court and dismissed the charge, letting the man off without a caution.

So, this sort of thing happens. I am sure every member of the house could quote an issue similar to this. This person is known to me, quite close—but certainly not me, even though I am a felon when it comes to a driver's licence.

Ms Breuer: Well, you've got one!

Mr VENNING: I've got one; I have a licence. This is the sort of case I have been referring to, law abiding citizens who have made a genuine mistake. I think there should be different classifications for those who deliberately and repeatedly choose not to register their vehicle and still drive, compared to those who are genuine cases of overlooking the matter, such as the case I have referred to, or in cases where a renewal notice has not been received.

I know that the onus is on us to make sure we drive a registered vehicle, but how often do we look at the disk and actually read what it says on there? I have been in a position in my life of driving unregistered—not caught, but looking up there and thinking, 'My God, the vehicle is not registered,' and quickly heading for home. I am most concerned with this legislation because there are huge increases in fines. I have also heard of cases where farmers are not aware that some farm machinery has to be registered. Will they be fined $2,500, as well? As I said, I introduced farm vehicle registration and I do not want see, as a repercussion of that, farmers—

The Hon. G.M. Gunn interjecting:

Mr VENNING: I did it because of the insurance liability they were facing. Now I think that every state in Australia has some type of vehicle registration for primary producers, even though the vehicles do not go near public roads and are used in paddocks. There are huge increases in penalties from $2,500 to $5,000. There is confusion amongst both farmers and law enforcement officers regarding farm equipment, especially towed trailers, headers, comb trailers, bins, etc., which has certainly caused a lot of angst.

Before I sit down, I want to commend to the minister, who is present in the house at the moment, the petition I delivered to the house today on the ferry at Mannum. I ask that he give it consideration. I notice that his Transport staff are here today. The minister knows that this is not a big job, even if they just cut the rollers off the ferry to get an extra foot. I am just giving the minister a little bit of advice. These people are very concerned, and I do not see it as a big job, particularly if one just cuts the rollers off the deck of the ferry. There is an extra foot instantly that can be gained because the water levels have fallen. I do not believe you can continue to do nothing on this issue. It was great that we had rain on the weekend, but I this situation could go on for two of three years and I think the people of Mannum deserve better. I look forward to the minister's response to the issues raised in relation to this bill.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON (Elder—Minister for Transport, Minister for Infrastructure, Minister for Energy) (16:02): I will address some of the points made by the opposition. First, I am certain that the member for MacKillop was not serious about continuing offences of speeding and, therefore, I will not deal with it with much seriousness, except to say that I would like to know what the start and finish was; whether it was a day, an hour, a week or a month. Do you get pinged once and then get a free ride for the rest of the day or something like that? Obviously, that is not going to happen.

In terms of speeding and the points made by the member for MacKillop (that he does not believe speed is a major factor in accidents anymore) I make two points: one is that it is precisely because speed is heavily regulated that safety has improved in that regard. The reduction of the speed limit from 60 to 50, although widely criticised, has reduced the incidence of speeding. People talk about revenue raising but the truth is that that measure reduced the incidence of speeding. Anecdotally, I can say that, driving in the country now, as opposed to when I was young, if I set the cruise control at the speed limit, I am astonished how few cars overtake me now as compared to the old days. It might be different out in the wild west, out the member for Stuart's way, but I make the point that—

The Hon. G.M. Gunn interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: The wild north, not west. I am referring to where he lives rather than where his seat is, but I should not.

The Hon. G.M. Gunn interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: He certainly spent a lot of time in Port Augusta before the last election, we know that. He does spend a lot of time in his electorate and he is a great local member. We will be very glad to see him retire because it is very hard to win the seat from him—apart from the fact that we like him, as well.

I want to address some of other the points raised: first, the notion that, in principle, these expiations should not be set by regulation. The change is being made in this bill because this offence is the only one set by the act instead of by regulation because this was the offence of exceeding the speed limit by more than 45 km/h. It was so serious that it was believed a $500 fine should be set. Prior to this time, I think the maximum fine that could be set by regulation under expiation notice was $350 and that was not considered to be high enough. Now that a higher fine can be set by regulation it was considered that this fine should fall in line with all the other fines. I do not think setting expiation fines by regulation was an innovation of this government. I am not certain about that but I am pretty sure that it has been around for a much longer time than this government; this merely returns it to the ordinary practice, I would have said.

In regard to driving unregistered and uninsured, and the question about the increase in the expiation notice, I say in answer to the member for Morphett's question that, in terms of the increases in expiation fines, that has been done by CPI. I think the regulation has done that by CPI in recent years. That does not apply, of course, to driving unregistered and uninsured. Until this bill is passed it is not possible to expiate such an offence. In terms of some of those offences, in the act you can expiate around licence plates—not all of those are expiable; some of them being created–but the ones that are expiable have been increased by the ordinary CPI adjustment, or whatever it is (that ordinary adjustment annually) in recent years—to answer the questions.

What this bill does is increase the maximum penalty if you go to court. We have found that, if you do simple sums, the reward for avoiding registration costs can be as high as $2,000. Just so that people understand it, the bulk of the cost is, of course, insurance. This is not about saving money for the government. This is about the fact that ordinary drivers who are paying third party insurance are carrying these bludgers. People who do not pay insurance are being carried under the scheme. We get advice from the CTP committee which tells us what is needed to keep the scheme solvent (or whatever the proper term is for an insurance scheme). People who do not pay are bludging on the driving public, not on the government. We believe the fines set in court are too low. I think the average fine is under $300, and that is too low. We want to increase the maximum fine for those who do go to court as a signal to the courts that there should be a greater disincentive.

The points made by the member for Schubert are good ones and are addressed in this bill. It is going to allow the police to expiate minor offences that are pretty obviously inadvertence. I have been a lawyer and I have seen them in the Magistrates Court; people who have not realised that they were a few days over who are given a little fine and a two-day suspension on the days of their choosing. I do not know if it was lawful but I saw a magistrate suspend somebody until the end of the hearing.

So, by the time they had got out of there, they had served their licence suspension. That shows what a mockery it is if you make them all go to court. The bill does provide that some of these matters be expiated and that other serious cases should go to court and the court should levy a serious penalty for them. We make no apologies for the fact that cameras will now be used to detect these people because, as I said, they are bludging on decent people. I think that answers all the questions that I have been asked and, therefore, I commend the bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1 passed.

Clause 2.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Before this bill is proclaimed, could the minister indicate or have an inquiry carried out regarding inspectors? Clauses in this bill deal with the powers of inspectors, and the minister indicated earlier that the government wanted to work with industry. For reasons best known to themselves, some of the minister's inspectors are now pinging the operators of B-doubles when they are coming into silos because they allege that the section of road between the road and the silo has not been gazetted. I have had a telephone call today—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: You want to tell them; they have been pinged today. This is a well-known transport operator from Jamestown who rang me to ask what is going on. So, I told them that they were lucky they rang today because I would bring it to the minister's attention. We had the stupidity of that fool of an inspector (Burford) out at Ceduna some years ago when he nearly stopped the export of wheat. He did the same sort of thing. He drove past the operator every day for a month. People wonder why he has been named. One unreasonable act always generates another. I ask the minister: is there some bureaucratic hold-up? It is not in any way endangering safety because it has not gone into the Government Gazette. What does it actually matter at the end of the day? The product has to be shipped out. The operators are competent, good, organised people, so I just raise that with the minister.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: I say to the member for Stuart that one of the pieces of work that we are doing at the moment nationally, led by South Australia, is looking at what we call blocks in the logistics chain. It is the case that on occasions, with the best of intentions, things like the last kilometre fall through either the infrastructure or regulatory gap. A lot of very good work has been done by the Livestock Carriers Association in identifying some of these areas. My view is that we want to proceed with some speed to fix them up. As I said, sometimes it is a little infrastructure thing—a very small thing—and at other times it is just a failure in the regulatory approach to proclaim all of it.

I do not know what the circumstances are, but my view would be that, if you have proclaimed a route to get to a silo, you should be able to get all the way to the silo and not miss the last kilometre. The truth is that these are complex things and they rely on the cooperation of lots of parties. As you know, a great deal is the responsibility of local government in these sorts of things. So, these do occur. I would hope that in those circumstances the people enforcing the laws would enforce them with a degree of discretion. I do not know the particular circumstances but I will talk to the member for Stuart about it.

I can assure him that we in South Australia are leading some of the work on these sorts of things. We believe that there are too many of them, not just in South Australia but around Australia. I commend the Livestock Carriers Association for the work they have done which is being picked up by a number of the other freight industry people, and I believe that we will improve the situation. Some things will always fall through the net, and I would hope that we enforce our laws with a degree of understanding.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (3 to 33) and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

Bill read a third time and passed.

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