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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-10-14 Daily Xml
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CEMETERY REGULATIONS

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:52): My question is to the Minister for State/Local Government Relations. What are the implications for the Local Government (Cemetery) Regulations 2010 relating to parking and driving offences?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:52): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. On 25 May 2010, I released the draft Local Government (Cemetery) Regulations 2010 for consultation with local government, the funeral industry and cemetery authorities. The regulations, which are subordinate to the Local Government Act 1934, were last reviewed in 1995 and were required to be remade by 1 September 2010. The Governor in Executive Council approved the regulations, and they were gazetted on 12 August 2010.

The new regulations include a small number of changes of a relatively minor nature. The key policy considerations were plain language disclosure statements for funeral arrangements, coffin standards, unclaimed memorials and penalties for driving and parking offences within cemetery grounds.

Unfortunately, media reports in today's Advertiser allege that the local government cemetery regulations give new powers for parking inspectors to enforce penalties in cemeteries. These reports are misleading, and I can confirm that there are no new offences for people parking and driving in cemeteries and no new measures for parking inspectors coming into cemeteries.

The previous regulation 27 provided for one penalty of $200 for a breach of any regulation. The previous regulation 23 provided that a person in charge of a motor vehicle in a cemetery 'must comply with any lawful direction of the cemetery authority as to the driving or parking of vehicles'. I am advised that, while breaches are not common, in the past cemetery authorities needed to take offenders to court to control all parking and driving breaches.

The replacement regulations, which commenced operation on 1 September 2010, provide cemetery authorities with the option of issuing an expiation notice for driving or parking offences within the cemetery grounds. The expiation fees for offences are a maximum of $21 and $50 respectively, rather than $200 if the matter went to court. So, for a parking offence you are up for $21 under the new regulations instead of $200 under the former regulations. You do not have to be a mathematician to work out that that is a real benefit to people.

I am advised that this would avoid these expensive court costs for an offender and replace them instead with an on-the-spot fine or similar arrangement. During consultation with stakeholders on these regulations, cemetery authorities indicated that expiation fees may help authorities to better manage these driving and parking types of offences, things like (I have been informed) people taking short cuts and driving their cars through cemetery parking grounds, excessive speed in parking lots and people using the cemetery car parks to access other facilities nearby; so they are in fact not using or visiting the cemetery at all but off doing their shopping or something (that is my interpretation, anyway).

There is no need for families and mourners to be distressed by what they read in the paper today. They should not be distressed or worried by those misleading claims. It was a disgraceful beat-up that has caused a great deal of distress to those people who visit their loved ones in a cemetery and it was completely unnecessary and misleading.

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