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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Bills

Statutes Amendment (Transport Online Transactions and Other Matters) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 12 April 2017.)

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:50): I am the lead speaker for the opposition. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Madam Deputy Speaker. The opposition supports the bill. The bill, of course, is a government bill that makes numerous changes to the Motor Vehicles Act 1959, the Road Traffic Act 1961, the Highways Act 1926, Heavy Vehicles National Law (South Australia) Act 2013, and the Harbors and Navigation Act 2013. It also amends these acts to remove gender-specific language, reflecting the government's policy on gender, identity and equality.

The main focus of the bill is changes to the Motor Vehicles Act to modernise customer-governed online transactions by removing barriers to the use of online processes so that, for example, vehicle registration transfers and notices of vehicle sales can be recorded online rather than in paper forms lodged in person. These new online options via EzyReg will continue in conjunction with the existing paper form methods. The EzyReg app has been available for some years now, and my understanding is that this is an expansion of the use of the app that many South Australians have taken up.

The government visualises potential for an extra half a million transactions to be made online each year under these amendments. Customers will also be given the option of receiving communications electronically rather than by post. Licence renewal applications will be able to be made over the phone. The department advised me in the briefing they provided that, in addition to standard online registrations by clients using EzyReg, there are now 275,000 accounts set up by customers on EzyReg which allows them to use direct debits for payments. About 60,000 people use this option, as well as view their registration and demerit details.

This also amends the act's provisions for the accident towing roster scheme whereby holders of tow truck certificates will no longer be required to affix the certification to their clothing. The Road Traffic Act will have the definition of bicycles updated and remove unicycles and scooters from this category. This will also achieve consistency under the Australian Road Rules. Also, it does not mean that you do not wear helmets with those two means of transport.

Amendments to the Highways Act will address the ambiguity that has arisen on the road being treated as a road or a public road. The Statutes Amendment and Repeal (Budget 2012) Act incorporated amendments into the Highways Act to provide for certain roads to vest in the Commissioner of Highways so as to enable the commissioner to enter into contracts to promote commercial activities on these roads. I suspect that is things like service stations, for example, or perhaps even car parks for sightseeing if it is in the country. This has led to some ambiguity as to whether these roads will be treated as roads or public roads.

The amendments to this bill will clarify that and also that the commissioner has the same powers with regard to these roads as councils, which was intended in the 2012 budget act. Shareholder groups that I consulted, including the SAFC, SARTA, the CCF, the MBA and the Bicycle Institute of SA, raised no issues of concern with the bill. Consequently, the opposition will support the bill.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (15:55): I rise to support the bill and also to support the fantastic work that the people at Service SA in Mount Gambier contribute to our community and to many of these matters. If you go to Service SA during lunchtime on any particular day, the line-up is out the door. Having spoken with a number of constituents in that workplace, the common theme is around workload, so I am in favour of anything that can support people doing more online, as well as extra services for online access and administration.

The staff at Service SA in Mount Gambier are a very hardworking, patient, diligent lot. On many occasions I have witnessed the extreme workload they are under, so anything the minister can do to lighten that load would be really appreciated by the wonderful staff at Service SA. With those few remarks, I conclude.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:57): I rise to speak to the Statutes Amendment (Transport Online Transactions and Other Matters) Bill 2017. What is happening here with this legislation is that the government is making quite a few small changes to the Motor Vehicles Act 1959, the Road Traffic Act 1961, the Highways Act 1926, the Heavy Vehicle National Law (South Australia) Act 2013 and the Harbors and Navigation Act 2013. As has been indicated by the shadow minister, the member for Unley, the bill amends these acts to remove gender-specific language, reflecting the government's policy on gender identity and equality, evidently. From my count, in regard to gender-specific language there are 215 changes taking out 'his' or 'her' or 'he'; you will either be a 'person' or a 'commissioner' or something else.

The main focus of the bill is changes to the Motor Vehicles Act to modernise customer-government online transactions by removing barriers to the use of online processes so that vehicle registration transfers and notices of vehicle sales can be recorded online rather than with paper forms lodged in person. These new online options, via EzyReg, will continue in conjunction with the existing paper form methods. The government has estimated that there will be an extra 500,000 transactions made online each year under these amendments, and customers will also be given the option of receiving communications electronically or by post.

Licence renewal applications will also be able to be made over the phone. In a briefing received from the department, they advised that, in addition to standard online registrations by clients using EzyReg, there are now 275,000 accounts set up by customers on EzyReg, which allow them to use direct debit for payments—about 60,000 people use this option—as well as view their registration and demerit details.

In regard to what happens to the accident towing roster scheme, the bill also amends the act's provisions whereby holders of tow truck certificates will no longer be required to affix certification to their clothing. In regard to the Road Traffic Act, the definition of 'bicycle' will be updated to remove unicycles and scooters from this category. This will also achieve consistency under the Australian Road Rules.

There will also be some amendments under the Highways Act, which will address ambiguity which has arisen on a road being treated as a 'road' or a 'public road'. The Statutes Amendment and Repeal (Budget 2012) Act 2012 incorporated amendments to the Highways Act that provided for certain roads to vest in the Commissioner of Highways so as to enable the commissioner to enter into contracts to promote commercial activities on these roads. This has led to some ambiguity as to whether these roads are to be treated as 'roads' or 'public roads', and amendments in this bill will clarify that the commissioner has the same powers with regard to those roads as councils, which was the intention of the 2012 budget act.

Groups have been consulted in the transport sector, including the South Australian Freight Council, the South Australian Road Transport Association, the CCF (SA), the MBA and the Bicycle Institute SA, and no concerns were raised with the bill. I think it will certainly be a step forward to make it easier for registration processes online.

As was indicated earlier by the member for Mount Gambier, there can be very long queues outside registration offices. They are under Service SA now, so there are many complex arrangements that need to be dealt with. At times it can be frustrating, but I must say that, in my own arrangements around registration and certainly in the last couple of years with some personal matters I had to sort out, they were all very good and very keen to get the right result, which was good to see. With those few words, I support the Statutes Amendment (Transport Online Transactions and Other Matters) Bill.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (16:03): I would like to speak briefly in support of this bill. The Statutes Amendment (Transport Online Transactions and Other Matters) Bill 2017 amends various pieces of transport legislation, including the Motor Vehicles Act 1959, the Road Traffic Act 1961, the Highways Act 1926 and the Heavy Vehicle National Law (South Australia) Act 2013, to better provide for online transactions and other improvements to efficiencies of existing transport legislation.

The bill proposes changes to the Motor Vehicles Act (the act), which aim to better serve the public by providing options for more online services under the act. The changes support government priorities, particularly digital by default and simpler regulation, and complement other important reforms involving the act, such as the proposal to enable digital driver's licences contained in the Premier's simplification and repeal day initiative.

The changes include introducing the capacity for registration transfers and changes in vehicle ownership to be recorded online, instead of lodging or mailing paper forms, and also the option for licence disqualification acknowledgements to occur online rather than having to personally attend at service centres. Other amendments in the bill enable the capacity for greater electronic communications with the public. The legislation is worded in general terms so that electronic services may evolve over time without having the further need to change the act unnecessarily.

These online services are anticipated to greatly assist the public in meeting their requirements under the act more conveniently. Existing paper-based procedures will remain to maximise choice for all in our community. This is a very important point. For those people who have access to online services, those choices will be available, and for those people who are perhaps not so comfortable with online services the existing paper mechanisms will still prevail.

The registration changes amount to some 430,000 transactions per year and the licence disqualifications amount to 17,000 transactions per year. Once the changes are implemented, Service SA estimates that a significant portion of these 500,000 or so transactions per year will shift from requiring service centres visits to the online environment. For many people, particularly in outlying areas, this will be a boost because they often have to travel long distances to get to a service centre and often they are quite busy.

The increased efficiency of service delivery is expected to result in administrative savings and contribute to the achievement of governmental budget targets. There are other miscellaneous changes to the act proposed in the bill, including allowing licence renewals to be applied for by telephone and introducing a ministerial delegation power. This bill also makes a number of minor and technical amendments to the Heavy Vehicle National Law (South Australia) Act 2013, the Road Traffic Act 1961 and the Motor Vehicles Act. These changes serve to amend definitions, clarify provisions and optimise operation of the legislation resulting from the introduction of the Heavy Vehicle National Law in 2014.

The Road Traffic Act is amended by the bill to update the definition of a bicycle and also to clarify the minister's powers in section 175A, varying or revoking average speed point to point gazettal notices. The bill clarifies amendments made to the Highways Act 1926 as part of the commercialisation changes effected by the Statutes Amendment and Repeal (Budget 2012) Act 2012. This ensures that roads vested in the Commissioner of Highways under the commercialisation provisions are to be treated as public roads. All in all, this bill improves the capacity of the government to provide a better service to people in South Australia.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (16:07): Mr Acting Speaker, I take the opportunity to congratulate you on your elevation to high office. I am sure TheBorder Watch will report on it.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Bell): It will be in the paper tomorrow, don't worry about that.

Mr WILLIAMS: I rise first of all to indicate my support for the Statutes Amendment (Transport Online Transactions and Other Matters) Bill. I certainly support the ability to transact matters with the Registrar of Motor Vehicles online, but in my business, which I will say my wife runs, we have a significant number of vehicles registered, and most farmers would find themselves in the same category.

Our farm has a number of 4WD vehicles that are used principally on the farm, as well as motorbikes, tractors, trucks, trailers and a range of other vehicles which are registered. I would not hazard a guess at how many registrations there are, but I do know that my wife has complained for a number of years that, when it comes to registering, because we have a common registering date, they all fall due—

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: That's an expensive day.

Mr WILLIAMS: It is indeed. I find that our business is a significant contributor to the coffers of the state through that alone. The reality is that, even though we have a common date to register, on that particular day, which is late in January, my wife finds it impossible to do it online because she can only do one at a time. Notwithstanding that we have a number which should identify our business to the department and identify all the vehicles we have registered and which would indicate that all the registrations fall due on the same date, there is no facility within the software the agency uses to allow her to tick this one, that one, the next one and the next one, add up all the amounts and pay the relevant amount of money. She goes on, registers one and then the site basically closes down and she has to log back on and do them one at a time, which she finds incredibly difficult.

A solution was suggested to her by the good people that you, Mr Acting Speaker, talked about in the office in Mount Gambier. I am aware of this because I was given the task of doing this back in January one day when I happened to be going to Mount Gambier. My wife handed me a folder with all these registrations that were due and said, 'Can you call around to the Service SA office, stand in the line and hand these to one of the people behind the counter?'

I walked up to the window and the lady said to me, 'I've been watching you in the line. You've got a big folder there in front of you and you look like trouble.' I said, 'Not at all. My advice is that I am to deliver these to you, you are to take them from me, you will process them and I will come back sometime next week or whatever. You will give me a phone call and I will drop back in and pay the relevant amount.' No, I had to give her a credit card number, I think, so that they could withdraw the relevant amount. Sure enough, I got a phone call about a week later saying that they had all been processed. Subsequently, I am not too sure whether it was my wife, my son or me, but one of us picked them up. That was the process that we had to go through.

I hope that the minister and his agency will take that on board. I can only assume that a significant number of businesses that operate in the state have to go through the same process that our family business had to go through. I would suggest it is thousands, if not tens of thousands, where there are multiple registrations to one business. I suggest that they collect them all together on one date. I would like there to be a facility whereby we could simply register them all electronically at our convenience, at any time during the day. I think that would make life better, certainly for the operators of such businesses and probably even better for the agency that handles them.

There is another matter that I also find tiresome, to say the least. Again, in the business of running a farm from time to time our business purchases a piece of machinery, whether it be a tractor or a truck, that needs to be registered. When you go in to register it, you take in the previous registration number that identifies the vehicle and then you are asked for all the specifications of the vehicle. Again, about 12 months ago I bought a truck. The truck was registered, I drove it home to my farm and then I went to transfer the registration into my name or the name of my business.

I actually had to go online and use Google to find the make and model of the truck—this is a Volvo truck. I had to go to the manufacturer's specifications, which gave me the wheelbase, the track, the weight and all those details. I then had to go in to the service centre, again in Mount Gambier, fill out all these details on a form and give them to the people working there so they could transfer the registration into my name.

The agency already had all that data. It already had it all, but I had to go to a fair bit of effort. I could not determine the weight of the vehicle because obviously, from the manufacturer's specification, the weight was the cab chassis, whereas when I purchased the truck it had a tray on it. It also had another fuel tank on it. I had to estimate the weight of the tray and the fuel tank. I estimated it and said to the lady there that I had filled it out. She looked at it, looked at her screen and said, 'I think we'll change that to such and such.' I was out by about 150 kilos. I was most thankful because I have had the experience of being told that I had to go to a weighbridge and have it weighed, which again is a great inconvenience because you have to go to a public weighbridge, pay for it and then go back with the exact weight.

My late father-in-law explained this situation many years ago when he purchased a tractor from a clearing sale near Murray Bridge. He went into the office at Murray Bridge and went through the same thing. They asked him for the tyre size and he guesstimated it. They said, 'No, the tyre size is supposed to be such and such.' He said, 'These are not the original tyres. They have been changed.' He had to put the height of the tractor. He guesstimated it but, no, that was wrong. He said, 'It's had a two-way radio fitted and it's got a little antenna that I've added on.' Every measurement he got wrong, but he had a reason why his was different from the original specification. He got the registration at that point but, to my mind at least, this points out the nonsense.

I am sure that the good folk you referred to in the office in Mount Gambier, Mr Acting Speaker, and their colleagues in other offices around the state are doing what they have to do, but surely the regulations could be changed to simplify those sort of processes. I have another truck and trailer on my farm that 12 months ago I changed to a farm permit because we only use it on the farm, but we have to cross the road from one part of the farm to the other. We were able to get a farm permit for that truck and trailer.

Recently, we wanted to use it for another job, so we registered it for three months. My son did it, and he tells me that if at some stage in the future we want to change it back to a farm permit we again have to go through the process of identifying all those measurements—all the specifications of that truck and trailer—to satisfy the regulations. I think that is a nonsense. It will not be a change of ownership, just a change of the status of the registration, but it makes quite a deal of work to go through the process and get all those details.

When I have done it, I have just googled the manufacturer's specifications and copied them down. I have had the experience, when I went over to the shed in the first instance with a tape measure to measure the wheelbase of the truck, of thinking there was something seriously wrong because the wheelbase was longer on one side of the truck than it was on the other. I then realised that the wheels were not parallel with the truck. There was a bit of a turn on it and it made a difference of a few centimetres, but it had me scratching my head for a few minutes.

Those are a couple of things that I will put to the minister whilst he is trying to simplify the processes, and I congratulate him on doing that. I am aware of a couple of other areas—and I am sure other members are aware of some others—that would certainly make life easier for businesses similar to the farm business that I operate in a different life. With those words, I commend the minister for going so far. I am urging him to go a little bit farther.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (16:18): I rise very gladly to speak to this bill. As has already been indicated by our lead speaker and others, it is a bill that we support, and I think it is a major step towards bringing Service SA and the transport industry into the 21st century. What a boon it will be to allow online transactions for everybody in this state, particularly those who live in more remote parts of the state.

The bill makes numerous small changes to the Motor Vehicles Act and other acts, including the Road Traffic Act, the Highways Act, the Heavy Vehicles National Law (South Australia) Act and the Harbours and Navigation Act. It also amends those acts to remove gender-specific language, reflecting the government's policy on gender identity and equality, which is most important.

The main focus of the bill is in relation to changes to the Motor Vehicles Act and to modernise customer-government online transactions by removing barriers to the use of online processes. For example, vehicle registration transfers and notices of vehicle sales can be recorded online rather than with paper forms lodged in person. These new online options via EzyReg will continue in conjunction with the existing paper form methods. The government envisages the potential for an extra half a million transactions to be made online each year.

I alluded to those customers in more remote parts of the state. In fact, as the local member, I have been contacted often by those constituents. The electorate of Flinders extends from Port Lincoln, and I highlight Port Lincoln not just because it is the largest urban settlement or population centre in the electorate but because it is the home of the only Service SA office in the electorate.

That means that people who live in communities in the north-east, as far as Darke Peak, and who live in the north-west, as far as Ceduna and beyond—and, in fact, there are farming communities that exist at Coorabie, Nundroo and a small settlement at Fowlers Bay—have up until now had to drive all the way to Port Lincoln, and that is 550 kilometres one way from Coorabie. It is a 1,100-kilometre round trip to register your car. It is a long way, and imagine if you forgot one of the pieces of paperwork. You can imagine the frustration of some of my constituents.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Bell): The wife wouldn't be happy.

Mr TRELOAR: Exactly—why wouldn't you take them with you? But you know how it is. It is a long, long way to access a government service, and for that reason I took it upon myself to do some lobbying on this, and I thank the minister for allowing his staff to meet me and to put to them some of the issues that surround this. I would like to think that in some small way that lobbying effort of our electorate office and other members on this side has helped to bring about these changes.

Customers will also be given the option of receiving communications electronically rather than by post, and that brings another issue to the table. In fact, we are discovering on Eyre Peninsula that Australia Post is becoming slower. The turnaround time for a letter posted on Eyre Peninsula to Adelaide and back has extended out by some days. It used to be a couple of days, but it can now be a week—it just seems to be the way of the world. Once again, it is pleasing to see that the government has moved into the 21st century.

In their briefing, the department advised that, in addition to standard online registrations by clients using EzyReg, there are now 275,000 accounts set up by customers on EzyReg, which will allow them to use direct debit for payments. About 60,000 people are already using this option to view their registration and demerit details, which is always a point of interest. All these services are becoming more accessible. The member for MacKillop mentioned lining up for a long time with a stack of papers, and I cannot remember whether he said with a chequebook or a credit card, but either way he was up for a big bill.

The bill also amends provisions in relation to the accident towing roster scheme, whereby holders of tow truck certificates will no longer be required to affix certification to their clothing. These are small but important changes. The Road Traffic Act will also have the definition of bicycle updated, to remove unicycles and scooters from the category. This will also achieve consistency with other Australian road rules, so it is part of the harmonisation process we are seeing in transport across the board. Heavy vehicles is another example where harmonisation is occurring, and we have discussed that legislation in this place already.

Amendments to the Highways Act will address ambiguity that has arisen from a road being treated as a road or a public road. The Statutes Amendment and Repeal (Budget 2012) Act 2012 incorporated amendments to the Highways Act that provided for certain roads to vest in the Commissioner of Highways so as to enable the commissioner to enter into contracts to promote commercial activities on these roads. Understandably, this has led to some ambiguity as to whether these roads are to be treated as roads or public roads, and amendments in the bill will clarify that the commissioner has the same powers with regard to these roads as councils, which was the intention of the 2012 budget act.

There has been extensive consultation, and all the main players who were consulted—SAFC, SARTA, CCF South Australian branch, MBA and Bicycle Institute of South Australia—raised no concerns with the bill. Rather than having concerns, I am pleased to support it for all the good things that it will bring to constituents in my part of the world. As the member for MacKillop alluded to, there is still more to do and there is plenty more within the transport sector that can be done. The minister and the department have undertaken what is known as a 90-day project in regard to heavy vehicle transport and farm machinery in particular. I would suggest that the 90 days has extended beyond that.

It is a bit like walking through wet cement sometimes, but those involved in the primary industry sector, be it fishing or farming, have the feeling that as legislators and as the government we are not keeping pace with the technological advances being made in the sector and that the size and capacity of the machinery are moving way beyond where the legislation is at the moment. I think we need to make a concerted effort as legislators to allow modern and efficient operators to do just that.

I talk about efficiency particularly because, as I have said in this place before, our primary producers are competing in a global marketplace. They are competing against the Canadians, the Americans and the Ukrainians and they do not need a disadvantage, and some of the regulations we are faced with at the moment bring about a disadvantage by undermining the efficiencies that could potentially be there. I encourage the minister and the department to continue that work and, hopefully, get to a point where they have streamlined the transport of heavy vehicles and farm machinery.

Once again the member for MacKillop highlighted that many of the businesses operating in rural areas have a number of vehicles on their inventory—cars, trucks, tractors, trailers and motorbikes—and managing their registration should, as a result of the bill, be so much easier. With that, I thank the government and the minister for bringing this bill because it is probably one of the few in this place that I support wholeheartedly. I look forward to the swift passage of the bill.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (16:28): I thank the speakers who have contributed to the second reading on this bill. I will not reiterate all the things the bill seeks to do because the speakers preceding me have done that quite well. They have also taken the chance to highlight some of their personal experiences of navigating the various interactions that the government, the Department for Transport and Service SA require South Australians to have with them when seeking to transact in relation to themselves as licence holders or in relation to their vehicles or for other purposes.

I often like to say, particularly around this time of the year in the lead-up to the budget, that transport is the one area of government that people use just about every day. Fortunately, people do not need our police force every day, children do not go to school every single day, with weekends and school holidays, etc., and, touch wood, people do not need our hospitals every day, but people do rely on our transport networks. It did not take me long to realise, occupying my portfolio responsibilities, that because just about everyone uses our transport networks every day they have strong opinions about them and how best they might be resourced, managed and superintended.

Although this bill seeks to make a collection of, by themselves, relatively minor changes, it will deliver some significant benefits to those people who interact with our transport agencies. You do not need to think too deeply when you are looking at the acts that are being amended by this bill, some of them having been written in excess of 60 to 80 years ago, that sometimes the way in which we provide for South Australians' interactions with our transport agencies can be pretty outdated. Certainly, they are paper based, they are heavily reliant on rules and, in many cases, they are personal interactions with government agencies. That is time consuming, cumbersome and, for some people, expensive, particularly for those people running businesses.

As technology has developed, particularly over the last 20 years, and as the take-up of that technology has become more prevalent throughout our community, it has been the role of government—and not just this government but governments around Australia and the world—to try to adapt their systems and processes to make best use of advances in technology and alleviate some of the burden that complying with our laws can place on individuals and on businesses.

I think that at least for the medium term there will always be a reasonably significant group in our community who will still feel most comfortable interacting with our transport agencies by personally presenting to a Service SA centre. You only need to attend a bank branch, dwindling in number though they may be, at any time of the day on the days that they are open to get an appreciation of the sorts of people who feel more comfortable involving themselves in transactions in person. They tend to be the more elderly in our community, those people who have become used to and comfortable with a particular system or process over many years and they would like that to be continued.

Just as that is the case with people's interactions with their financial institutions—their banks and credit unions—it is also the case for many people with Service SA centres. However, there is a constantly growing number in our community who feel just as comfortable, perhaps even more comfortable, not having to deal with people face to face and being able to transact just about exclusively online.

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: In the upper house, yes, that is right, is the interjection from the member for Unley. Of course, we can speak about them, but will they hear? For them, it is exceedingly late in the day and they may not still be here, but I speculate about that.

There will always be people who feel more comfortable going into a Service SA centre, and that is why it is important that we continue to provide for them. However, every transaction we can take away from a face-to-face interaction and move to an online system, whether it is on a computer, a smart phone, an iPad or something similar, not only speeds up that process for the person using one of those online portals but it also provides more capacity in a Service SA centre for those members of our community who still want to go in there and interact in person.

That may well be the case, for example, for the member for MacKillop. He spoke about getting one of his trucks registered. Who would have thought the member for MacKillop would be a Volvo driver? Apparently, he is. I will not speculate further what that means; I will leave that there. He spoke about some of the difficulties and some of the time-intensive processes that he has experienced in making sure that he can continue registering his vehicles and keep them compliant with our laws and our regulations.

The more we can ease that burden on the member for MacKillop, the more we will be easing that burden on those people who have a similar experience to his—people who run businesses, particularly businesses in regional areas, for whom a trip to a Service SA centre can be additionally time consuming and may eat into other productive time that they could be spending elsewhere on their business. That is why these bills are so important.

I think it is critical for us to continue thinking about our transport systems, and particularly our road networks, as a service that we can provide to the community as efficiently and as beneficially to South Australians as possible. The member for Flinders made mention of one of those initiatives, those processes, that we have been going through in recent times and that is what we call the 90-day project, the modern transport system for the agricultural sector, to try to give people a better service out of the roads, particularly for people in regional areas to allow them to use higher productivity vehicles, higher capacity trucks, perhaps moving from a semitrailer to a B-double or a B-double to a road train or a road train to a triple and so on. In that way, as it saves them money, it means that they can move their goods more efficiently and more quickly either to port or to market, and then we serve them better with our transport systems. That is what we are trying to achieve here.

Of course, the member for MacKillop was also correct. This is not by any stretch of the imagination a job entirely done. This is something that needs to be continued for some time until we are delivering the sorts of benefits that South Australians feel truly satisfied with. They are making best use of their own business or private time and they are minimising the amount of time they have to spend interacting with government agencies.

In addition to these sorts of interactions, we have also announced a digital licensing initiative that will help people using a device like a smart phone, similar to mine here—not that that was a display to the house, I should add. It was a momentary allusion to a smart phone. It will enable people to store a series of licences or permits securely on their smart phone and be able to produce that as a verified form of identification to some form of authorised officer, whether it be one of the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure's marine safety officers who might ask a boat operator to see whether they have their current boat licence with them or whether it be a real estate agent to make sure that they have all of the necessary accreditations that they need as well. That will continually be rolled out.

Of course, the big one to include is the regular driver's licence and all the different iterations of the driver's licence, whether it is a regular car licence, an R-date licence for motorcyclists or a heavy vehicle licence as well. Perhaps those younger members of the community will also be very keen and interested to hear that it includes a proof of age card as well. These are important innovations because they provide flexibility for people who need to carry with them these sorts of licences or permits or validations of their identity.

We can do it in a safe and secure way that will give them flexibility rather than carrying around what so many of us to date have had to carry around with us, and that is an enormously bulky wallet or purse—or, in the case of the Speaker, a clutch or portfolio—to ensure that we are always fully furnished with all the documents and accreditations we may need. I feel I have only but begun to talk to the merits of this particular bill, but I understand that we may have some questions in the committee stage.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

Mr PISONI: I have some general questions. There were reports today about the need for physical licences to continue to be carried for ID; some venues, for example, will not have the facilities to validate digital licences. I suspect that would be more common for venues and proof of age. Can the minister give the committee some indication as to what the process is for a venue to purchase the equipment to validate electronic licences using apps, what the waiting period is once the application is made and what the set up costs may be?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: My understanding is that it is an app-based system, both for the licence holder and for the person who is, for want of a better term, checking, or trying to verify the details of that person's identity—their age, for example. Perhaps a good example is a doorman or a bouncer at a nightclub trying to verify someone's age by their app-based proof of age card. I use that example rather than the driver's licence because the driver's licence has not yet gone live.

My understanding is that the app that has been produced is free to download for the user who seeks to hold their details, proof of age card or other permit or licence, as the case may be, within the app, and the person seeking to verify that also has an app that scans the other person's barcode—I am using the term 'barcode', but I am sure it is not as rudimentary as a barcode—with their smart phone or similar device, also using the same app. That will give them verification as to whether what they being presented with is the correct and true document and not some sort of falsification.

Mr PISONI: Can the minister advise how people's bona fides are confirmed? How do you get your information onto the app in the first place? Currently, with a driver's licence, you show ID at a Service SA centre and pose for a photograph. The photograph is then transposed onto a plastic, credit card-sized licence, so all the evidence is there that the person who has the photograph taken is the licence holder.

Will you need to go into a Service SA centre in order to set your settings for your ID and, later, for your driver's licence when that comes online, and what is the process for the licence holder? Can they do it from home, for example, or does it need to be done in a Service SA centre?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am advised that the system, as it has been designed, is to migrate existing licence holders into a regime where they can retain their existing card but also make use of the app-based system. It is essentially the same as the EzyReg app-based system. We are talking hypothetically because we have not done the drivers' licences, but let's assume that we have for the purposes of the example.

A licence holder would already have a profile, or they would already have the details within the government document system, in a similar way to our vehicles when we seek to have them registered on the EzyReg system. You are able to provide a level of bona fides in there to enable you to bring up the facts of your identity and your account, which can then be represented on the screen of the smart phone or similar device.

When a user seeks to show themselves or another person the bona fides of their licence, permit or whatever it may be, that triggers, in real time, a connection with the TRUMPS online database, which is used by the government to manage all of this, and that is then verified on the screen of the phone in real time. That is important because it ensures that there is not an old, lingering presence or image on that smart phone of somebody's details at some point in the past. It represents the current status and bona fides of the user in real time at this point in time, and ensures that there can be no misrepresentation of whether they are of age or appropriately licensed, etc.

Mr PISONI: If you have moved from interstate and you want to transfer your licence, or if you have just recently got your licence either as an adult or as an 18 year old, do you first need to get a physical licence and then go through the process of having an app-based licence? Similarly, with your proof of age licence, do you need to get the physical licence first or can you go straight to an app-based licence?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: At this point in time, yes, you still need to go through the process of getting a physical licence—a card or a bit of paper—and that existing licence or permit then migrates to the app-based presence on a smart phone. There is a desire in the future to try to reduce those interactions in order to achieve the licence or permit in the first instance, but what we are talking about at the moment is just migrating existing licences.

To draw a parallel, the EzyReg system can be accessed for vehicles that already have registration or are already in the registration system. I do not believe that you are able to register a vehicle for the first time via EzyReg. You still need to go in and undertake an interpersonal process, order plates, be able to receive them, etc., and similarly at this point in time that process will still be necessary for the licence. Trying to migrate some of those processes involved in getting a licence onto an online platform is work for the future.

Mr PISONI: Will this enable the complete elimination of paperwork for, say, the transfer of a motor vehicle registration? Can it be done entirely with the seller and the buyer using only their mobile phones?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: My understanding is yes. It can be either. You can still use the paper-based system if that is your preference, but for the first time, through these changes, that can be done online either by the purchaser or by the vendor. I should draw the distinction that the changes we are making here are about those sorts of interactions—transfers of registration, acknowledging disqualifications, etc. These are not the changes that are necessary to the Motor Vehicles Act to enable the app-based licensing.

Mr PISONI: Is it instant? If the money changes hands, the keys change hands and the transaction is made online to transfer the registration to the new owner, and the new owner is then done for speeding five minutes down the track, who gets the bill?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am told it is done in real time. If you were the purchaser of the vehicle using the online transfer of the registration, in your example of a road traffic offence being committing, the purchaser, having gone through that online process, would be seen by the system as the new registered owner. It is probably also worth saying that, of course if there are any fees or charges like stamp duty on the purchase of a vehicle, then you would be asked to do that via a credit card payment, basically, just like you would when you renew your registration at the moment through EzyReg.

Mr PISONI: I think this is the last question. Are there instances where, even if they have the app to read a mobile device, police or hotel staff would insist on the physical proof of age or the physical licence? What does the law say? Does the law say that having it on your phone and being verified through the real-time process is enough? When police pull you up on the side of the road or when you are dealing with someone who is responsible for ensuring that under-age people do not enter nightclubs or drink, is it one or the other, or can they insist on the old system, even though the new system is up and running?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am advised that the changes to the bill provide that it is a legal document, so it is sufficient to satisfy legal requirements. For example, when the police pull over somebody who is on their Ls or Ps and they are required to be carrying their licence, legally this will suffice. Obviously, there is likely to be a period with the police when, as with all other law changes, officers will need to have their attention drawn to the fact of these changes and become used to seeing this out on the road. However, for the purposes of that sort of legal interaction then, yes, it is a fully legal document.

That is not to say that that answer carries as neatly for people manning the doors of a nightclub or a pub, for example, because they still may choose to exercise their discretion, and refuse entry if they so wish, because it is a private premises. However, for the purposes of a police traffic stop then, yes, it is a fully legal document.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (2 to 41), schedule and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (16:56): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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