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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-04-06 Daily Xml
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PRETTY, MR G.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (15:30): I rise to talk about a matter of life and death. Greg Pretty (which rhymes with Betty) was a superstar of Australian motor sport. Thirty years ago he was the hottest thing in Australian road racing. As motorcycle journalist and author Don Cox put it, the sight of him sliding both wheels in the speedbowl section of the Adelaide International Raceway was one of the classic images of the era.

He won production races at Bathurst in 1970, the South Australian round of the national championships and, during the 1979 season, the chirpy 24 year old with the Zapata moustache won the Australian Unlimited Road-Racing Championship, the Swann Insurance International Series, the Indonesian GP and the Sugo Big Road Race in Japan. He won the Adelaide Three-Hour and the Perth Four-Hour, finished second in the Castrol Six-Hour and did credibly in the Isle of Man TT. In 1979, Pretty was a Duke of Edinburgh Award winner. As Cox said, Greg honed his riding skills in the Hills most Sundays in the Phoenix Motorcycle Club's run from Eagle On The Hill to Lobethal.

In mid-January last year, Greg Pretty died in a head-on crash with another motorcyclist near Macclesfield. The other rider, 50 year old Mostyn Walker, also died at the scene. Pretty was riding with a group of friends. Walker was on his own. The next day, perhaps relying on the testimony of Pretty's friends, the media reported that the fatal crash had been the other rider's fault.

Police told journalists that the other rider had crossed to the wrong side of the road when he hit Pretty coming in the opposite direction. Senior Sergeant Brenton Rowney of the Major Crash Investigation Unit said Walker had made a very grave error that had cost two lives. 'The Honda—Pretty's bike—was heading south on the correct side of the road,' Sergeant Rowney told reporters. 'The Kawasaki veered on to the incorrect side of the road for whatever reason and killed both of them,' he said. Imagine how Mr Walker's close and immediate family, his friends and others who knew him felt when they read that. The sergeant went on:

Clearly this accident today or this collision today is as a result of someone driving outside their skill level. If people continue to do that, no matter what the police do or what members of the public do, the road toll will continue to climb.

Naturally, Australia's large and active motorcycling community was shocked and outraged that a well liked and respected racer should meet his death not on the racetracks which had made him famous, but on the roads, and because of someone else's stupidity and recklessness. On internet forums the other rider was castigated.

Last month came the official findings of the coroners inquest. It found that Greg Pretty, not Mostyn Walker, had been on the wrong side of the road. Pretty had caused the fatal crash. He had killed Walker, not the other way around. I will quote from the findings of the official inquest:

The Advertiser and Sunday Mail referred in positive terms to Mr Pretty's undoubted abilities as a rider but said nothing of the kind in relation to the other deceased motorcyclist. The quoted remarks of the police spokesman disparaged the other motorcyclist. It will be seen that the comments attributed to the spokesman must have been offered to the media on the day of the collision and before any proper investigation.

The uncorrected account of the accident as described by the police spokesman was, if anything, the antithesis of the manner in which the accident occurred. This inquest would have been largely unnecessary had the police refrained from making any public statement about this accident before the facts were established. The assertions attributed to the police spokesman have not been publicly corrected since they appeared in the media in January 2010.

I would like South Australia Police to take heed of the Coroner's warning and not make presumptions before the facts are known. I counsel reporters not to report speculation as fact, particularly when blaming the wrong rider can have such awful consequences for an innocent man's memory. I wish to pass on my sincere condolences to the families and friends of both Greg Pretty and Mostyn Walker.

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