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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-07-16 Daily Xml
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POLICE (PROHIBITION ON PERFORMANCE TARGETS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 26 March 2009. Page 2103.)

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:16): This bill was introduced by my colleague, the venerable, long-term member, the Hon. Graham Gunn, enjoying his last six weeks in this place after 39 years. This is one of the things about which he is passionate. People question why this person can hold a marginal seat all these years and be successful. It is because he takes on issues like this to protect his constituents, and they very much respect the advocacy he has given them over all those years for that reason.

This bill brought in by the member for Stuart will inhibit police from directing police officers to stop a certain number of cars per day or month, or from requiring an officer to issue a certain number of fines. The member for Stuart brought this bill before the house after receiving continuous complaints from his constituents regarding the over zealous and unreasonable issuing of expiation notices by police. As I have said ad nauseam, the reason the member for Stuart has been here for so long is that he represents his constituents well. He listens to the people of his electorate and represents them well in this place.

I support this bill, as does the opposition, I think. I am uncomfortable—

Members interjecting:

Mr VENNING: I am sure they do. I always proudly support the Hon. Graham Gunn, but with issues like the open road speed limit of 130 kilometres I supported him, but my party did not, so we allowed a conscience vote on it. The Hon. Graham Gunn puts it out there and provides the perimeters within which we can legislate. I support this bill, and I am uncomfortable with the fact that the police apparently have targets or directives to stop a certain number of vehicles or issue a certain number of fines within a certain time frame.

I am very impressed with police officers, because they are real people, and I have many friends who are police officers and they tell me that this is the case. They are being told to get out there and go to the spots where they can meet their targets. It is true: they do not like it either. It is a directive from above. In today's paper we note that they will not now put up the signs. You will drive through the speed traps and will not know—

Mrs Geraghty: That is because speeding motorists attack them. That's outrageous!

Mr VENNING: It is outrageous. The member for Torrens says it is outrageous, and it is. These people should not be attacked, as they are doing their job after all. The removal of those signs is a big shift in legislation. I do not believe they can do that without bringing it to this house, as it was in the legislation. I question the police commissioner's ability to give a directive to remove the signs, and I would like the Attorney-General to look at this, as I believe it is a breach of the act to do that, and many people will be upset. If I get pinged, at least I will know I have done it, because I have driven past a sign. As the house knows, I am well practised at this and, if I am going to get pinged, I have to know that I have done it. On some days on the notorious Gomersal Road there are often two speed traps a few kilometres apart. So, if you are not careful, you could do your licence in one day, by not being aware.

Mrs Geraghty: You shouldn't be speeding.

Mr VENNING: The member for Torrens is dead right, but you have to be aware of what you should be doing, and sometimes you are not. Otherwise, you have to drive at 50km/h everywhere. Irrespective of that, I am very concerned about the removal of these signs. The police should be out in the community protecting people, not stopping citizens (who are just going about their daily business) because they are trying to meet their quota of fines or cars stopped. In this instance, the police are tax collectors.

We know that, often, it is not the police doing this, we have special traffic officers who now operate these devices, but in a lot of country areas it is police officers driving patrol cars and motorcycles. After the Yunta incident, we are now pushing to have police officers operate in pairs. This will put a tremendous drain on resources. This is one area in which they could say, 'Well, hang on, we need to cut back here and put more police officers where they really need to be.'

I am aware of a 22 year old man who was driving home from TAFE late one afternoon and was randomly pulled over by a police officer. He had never been in trouble with the police before and had never received a speeding fine. The police officer said that he had not broken any of the road rules and proceeded to go over his car very thoroughly, a car that his father had spent many hours restoring. It was not an enhanced performance motor vehicle but a nice looking stock standard VB Commodore in fairly original condition. I think it had mag wheels and a CD player, but that was about it.

Upon returning home to his mum and dad, the young man was quite distressed. He said that the officer had spent quite a bit of time looking over the vehicle. He said that, in his opinion, it was obvious that the officer was trying to find something wrong with the car. In the end, the young man received a caution for having a dirty windscreen, and that was obviously all the officer could find wrong.

These incidents happen, and this is just one instance. I do not think we should have a full inquiry about it, but I think people need to know that our constituents are going to tell us about these problems, and I will raise them as the Hon. Graham Gunn has always done. I believe that these are the sorts of circumstances that the member for Stuart is trying to prevent by bringing this bill before the house.

I believe that motorists are aware that, at any time, they may be stopped for random alcohol and drug testing. I have no problem with that. People know my history on this: I have pushed it every day in this place and, at last, people understand what a serious problem drug taking is.

Mr Goldsworthy: They wouldn't support it initially.

Mr VENNING: They would not support it. It was nearly two years after I first introduced it that the government was dragged, kicking and screaming, to introduce its own bill, which was the same as the one that I put forward some 12 or 18 months earlier. I do not have a problem with any of this but, when it is clear that an officer has pulled over a motorist and tried to find anything to officially caution the driver, I think things have gone a bit too far. The police are there to protect our community, not to be over-zealous tax collectors because they are trying to meet performance targets.

As I said, I was very concerned to read today's paper. I have no problem at all with those speed detection cameras being there, but I do have a problem with the inconsistency of speed limits. We know that the default speed limit is 50 within Adelaide; some of the main roads are 70, some are 60 and some are 50. It is very inconsistent and people are not sure, particularly when the speed limit is changed.

The biggest fine I have received was when driving behind Angaston. I was in a hurry to get to a funeral and went over the top of the hill onto the back road, which used to be 80. I assumed it was 80; there was no speed sign. I came out of a side street and got picked up for doing 80 in a 60 zone.

Mr Pengilly: Did you pay the fine?

Mr VENNING: Yes, I paid the fine, and the rest of it that went with it. It was the road between Angaston and Moculta, a road that I do not often go on. It was always 80, but it has been changed. I did not see the sign, because the sign was back in the town, which I did not go past. This is how you can get caught. I got caught, and I was happy to pay the fine, and I did the time as well, as it turned out. I am happy to say that next week cameras will be there. All I can say here is that I do not believe that any police officers should be told, 'Get out there and don't come back until you've pinged so many people.' That is harvesting the motorists, and it is not fair. I support the Hon. Graham Gunn—again!

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (11:25): That was a very interesting and enlightening contribution from the member for Schubert. The government will not be supporting this bill for reasons that I will outline. Relative to its population, South Australia has a high fatality rate in comparison to other states and territories. In line with a national commitment to reduce the number of annual road fatalities by 40 per cent by 2010, the South Australian government has committed to curbing the high fatality rate.

Serious casualty crashes are also unacceptably high, and South Australia's Road Safety Reform Strategy has set a goal of reducing serious injuries to less than 995 per year by 2010. The expectation of achieving these reductions does not rest solely with the South Australian police. South Australia's Strategic Plan and the South Australian Road Safety Strategy identified the need for a multidisciplinary approach by both government and non-government agencies by supporting new technologies and safer road conditions.

As a community we should not accept that road trauma is inevitable. Adopting a lower tolerance requires an increased level of ownership of road safety by the broader community, as well as support for higher standards of driver behaviour. Major contributors to road trauma, such as drink driving and speed, are unacceptable, so too is driver behaviour, which in the past has been tolerated as being 'inattentive'. I think that is a really silly term, a silly excuse.

South Australia Police has made a major commitment to achieving this challenge by actively applying education, deterrence, enforcement and policing techniques in recognition that road death and injuries are preventable. Police, as one of the agencies responsible for road safety, should take, and have taken, a lead role in working with the community to raise the standard of acceptable road user behaviour, to be clear about those standards and to educate and intervene to reinforce those standards.

In the past, road safety may have been seen as the enforcement of traffic laws by specialist traffic police. This traditional approach has undergone a fundamental shift in recent years. Every police officer across all ranks and all functions now has the responsibility and is expected to actively contribute to achieving a reduction in deaths and injuries.

SAPOL has developed the SAPOL Road Safety Strategy 2006-10 to underpin the problem-solving approach taken by police in relation to lower tolerance and increased detection of any traffic offence in any location across South Australia, including the areas where the member for Schubert travels. It recognises that police across all functions, including patrols, investigators and members of the many specialist SAPOL units, interact with the community through their daily duties and can contribute to improving and modifying driver behaviour by intervening not only in serious offending but at all levels of poor, careless and inattentive road user behaviour. This action by police is integral to reducing the number of deaths and injuries that occur on roads in partnership with road users and the wider community.

All offending behaviour, including that which may be considered by some to be minor or trifling, can cause harm. Road safety is a core police function, and police have a strong focus on interaction with the community in relation to lower levels of offending to reduce the likelihood of any offending becoming more serious.

Setting benchmarks for increased detection of road safety offending has been in place since July 2007. The benchmark process measures a range of actions, such as breath testing, expiation notices, cautions and defect notices, which are able to be taken by individual police officers who observe inappropriate road user behaviour. It is one of many business activities monitored across all sections of SAPOL. Individual officers have always had the ability to apply discretion, where they consider it appropriate to do so, by formally cautioning road users. The benchmarking process has not removed that discretionary capacity.

In conclusion, the government supports strategies aimed at saving lives and reducing serious injuries on our roads. The simple fact is that we do not have to speed.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Williams.

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