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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-08 Daily Xml
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CHILD RESTRAINT LAWS

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:53): Today I wish to speak about the new child restraint laws and some of the unintended social and environmental consequences that flow from those laws. Last year, former road safety minister Zollo announced a new mandatory size appropriate child restraint system in passenger vehicles, to take effect from the second half of 2009. This was part of a national road rule change that was approved by state and territory ministers. The changes have been announced but we have not yet seen the detail tabled in parliament.

These new laws endorse the proposals of the National Transport Commission that children up to six months old must be restrained in a rearward facing infant capsule, a forward facing child seat until the age of four and a booster seat from the age of four until seven. Children must also be in the rear seat, where there is one. According to Dr Geoff Potter, the National Transport Commission's Senior Manager for Safety, 500 children up to the age of 10 are killed or seriously injured every year in car accidents, with 2,300 sustaining minor injuries. However, I think there is an argument that these laws represent an overreaction when we look at the statistics for South Australia and some of the unintended consequences.

The South Australian government has cited the statistic that 60 children under the age of 12 years were killed or seriously injured, yet, according to the federal government's Australian road fatality statistics, in South Australia in 2007 only two children aged seven years and under died in car crashes, one being a one year old and one a four year old.

In the group most affected by these changes, that is, the five, six and seven year olds, there were no fatalities. I say this group is most affected because these children are starting or in the early years of school and starting to engage in sporting and social activities. The impact I see arising from these laws is, potentially, to kill off car pooling. We are all aware of the situation where we minimise the use of cars by taking each other's kids around. One parent will take the kids to soccer and another parent will bring them all back. It is the same with playing at different children's homes and weekend activities.

The obligation for every driver to have an age appropriate child restraint in the car means that, more often than not, you will not be able to take other children, because you will not have a stock of various car seats and capsules that are age appropriate. That is a disincentive to car pooling. The natural consequence is more cars on the road, more danger, more pollution and disruption of our communities.

To give a brief example, if you are running late picking up your child from school, the common thing for people to do at the moment is to ring the parent of some other kid at the school and say, 'I'm running late, I've been held up at work, can you pick up little Johnny?' You might ring up your parents, the children's grandparents, but under these rules you will not be able to do that unless they have a spare age-appropriate seat. But you can ring a taxi and have your child taken home, perhaps to an empty house, in a taxi with a driver they have never met before, because taxis are exempt.

I ask the government to look at an option that does not unnecessarily risk the safety of our children but imports commonsense into this debate. We could have a system that imposes obligations on primary caregivers, in particular, parents—we want parents and primary caregivers to have the right seat for their children—but have an exemption similar to the taxi exemption for those situations where the child is travelling with someone else. That will not unduly endanger our children, given the statistics that I put before, but it is a good way to send a message to the community that car pooling is not just acceptable but something to be encouraged.

It may be that people will have multiple car seats, but most will not. When we consider that it costs about $200 each or more for proper car seats—not cheap Chinese ones—it becomes an expensive impost. The Greens say that soccer mums and netball dads should be able to give their child's team mates a lift without risking a fine or having to fork out hundreds of dollars for a spare booster seat.

Time expired.

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