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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-07-15 Daily Xml
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HOON CAR CRUSHING POLICY

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:01): My question is to the Attorney-General. Does the government's proposed hoon car crushing policy propose to crush cars with a substantial market value, such as the Subaru WRX, or is the policy restricted to crushing old cars? At yesterday's launch of the government's yet to be written policy, the Attorney-General alluded to an exception to the car crushing rule for cars which may be of reasonable commercial value.

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (15:02): A number of people have contacted me—and some, I have to say and confess, on my Twitter site—and asked why we would crush cars when we could sell them and put the money into the Victims of Crime Fund. Well, the answer is that we will sell cars and put the proceeds into the Victims of Crime Fund, because that is what we do now. However, there are some cars that are so defected—basically weapons on wheels—that they are not worth selling and, indeed, we would not want to put them back out into the community, and they will be crushed.

People have suggested some kind of a stockade in Victoria Square, or what have you, but the point of the matter is that that is obviously why we are giving the discretion to the police commissioner. People say, 'Oh, this is terrible. Oh my God, you should be selling these things.' I wonder whether they would say after our gun amnesty that we should collect them all, sell them and put them back out on the market. We crush those as well. The idea is that rather than putting a car—some souped-up bomb, a weapon on wheels—back out into the community, rather than putting the police through the process of putting it up for auction, we will give the police commissioner the discretion. I have confidence in the police commissioner; I have confidence that he will do the right thing. Where it is the best thing to crush, he will crush, and where it is in the best interests of the state to sell the Jaguar, or whatever it is that has been hooning down the street, and return the money to the Victims of Crime Fund, he will have the discretion to do so.

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