Page 501 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 23 March 2022
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court process. And I agree with Pedal Power that the sooner we can get outcomes on offences of this nature, the better for everyone.
I thank Ms Clay, Mr Steel and the staff from his office, the AFPA and Pedal Power for their engagement on this. I look forward to these laws being rolled out. The Canberra Liberals will be supporting the Clay amendments.
MS DAVIDSON (Murrumbidgee) (12.08): I would like to make a very brief statement in support of Ms Clay’s amendments. Having spoken to the Attorney-General and listened to Ms Clay talking through these amendments, what they mean for our justice system and what they mean for people who have experienced these situations on our roads, I understand that what she is looking to achieve with these amendments is a faster outcome that is better for everyone involved. So we support these amendments.
MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (12.09): In closing, I welcome all the comments here today. We have had a really useful debate and good negotiations on this. I absolutely accept the government policy and the careful drafting that has gone into the government bill. We wholeheartedly support that bill; we just wish to improve it.
The addition of a traffic infringement notice will improve it. It will make it enforceable. It will make sure that when Minister Steel runs the Share the Road campaign, it will have a big impact in Canberra. We all know that Canberra, in some ways, is a small town. The second you hear that somebody got a fine, it is going to spread like wildfire. Slow court prosecution, and possibly never court prosecution, would not have the same impact.
I remind members and reassure members that, as amended, we are going to have a really good hierarchy of offences here. We will have our negligent driving that does not cause harm. We will have our negligent driving that causes harm and can receive a fine if we pass this amendment. We will then have some more serious penalties where grievous bodily harm or death occurs.
But we also have another offence in the act that we do not need to debate; it is already there. We have an offence of driving in a way that puts at risk the safety of a vulnerable road user. That is a court enforcement prosecution offence only. The maximum penalties for that offence are quite high: $16,000 to $80,000 and 12 months to five years imprisonment. That offence is sitting there on the books. We can use that for the more serious ones.
This offence of actual harm, where the actual harm examples given are cuts, bruises, scrapes and sprained ankles, is a really appropriate offence for which to receive a traffic infringement notice and to receive the swift, on-the-spot action that we know our police—and we trust our police—are good at issuing. We understand that it does not remove anyone’s rights, because people who do not wish to pay it can go to court and will be in the same position as if there were no traffic infringement penalty.
The Greens support the government bill and we would like to amend it as well.
Amendment agreed to.
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