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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-16 Daily Xml
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Driver's Licence Disqualification

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:18): My question is to the Minister for Transport. If a licensed driver does not receive their first notice of demerit disqualification through no apparent fault of their own, why are they not eligible to elect for access to a 12-month good behaviour option once they have received notification? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms BEDFORD: My constituent not only accumulated 13 demerit points in 2015 but was not notified of the three-month licence disqualification until February this year when attempting to renew her licence. She was told the process server had attempted delivery on three occasions unsuccessfully each time and, as she missed her first notice, she was liable for extra costs and not eligible for the 12-month good behaviour option, which she would have otherwise elected to access and complete if she had been notified at the time of the disqualification.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (15:19): I am happy to take on board the specifics of that request. I think the member mentioned it happened in 2015. Again, I wasn't in this role back then; in fact, there was a different government in place, so I can't take the specifics of that.

Mr Odenwalder interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Elizabeth!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: As I said, 2015 was when Labor were in government. Again, I'm happy to take the specifics of that on notice and come back to the member. I did note that she said 13 demerit points were lost in the course of a year and, without again knowing those specifics, can I just emphasise the point of how important it is, when we talk about road safety and keeping people safe on our roads, of mentioning the significant investment we are making in upgrading our roads to keep people safe.

Police are out there doing the great job they are doing, but we do ask people to make sure that, when they are behind the wheel, they do the right thing. That is really important in a holistic approach to actually make sure we keep people safe on our roads. We want to make sure that we have no lives lost on our roads. Any life that is lost is one life too many, again across those three incidents.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: They may laugh and joke about it on the other side of the chamber—

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my left!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —but it's a serious matter. It's a very serious matter. We are building the infrastructure that South Australia needs to make sure we make our roads as safe as possible. Police are out there doing what they can to make sure that people are behaving when they are behind the wheel, when they are on our roads, to keep people safe, but we ask people as well to make sure they do what they can when they are behind the wheel to take responsibility for their actions.

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