Page 2428 - Week 11 - Thursday, 2 November 1989
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Kids often do it, and sometimes - parking inspectors themselves acknowledge this - infringements do just blow away; it is not an absolutely foolproof system.
In many instances, people will write to the registrar and, if that is the situation, the registrar will say, "Well, fair enough, you did not get your parking infringement notice, and you will not have to pay the final fee". I know that will occur. However, a lot of people do not write to government departments although that is always open to them. As the Minister for Community Services and Health quite properly said during the fluoride debate, a lot of people will simply not use fluoride tablets if there is no fluoride in the water, even if they are made readily available, because a lot of people, due to ignorance or for whatever reason, seem to be simply unable to avail themselves of the opportunity to write to a government department or to avail themselves of some service that is provided. Quite often those people are the poor and the socially disadvantaged in our society. No-one can tell me that there are not any poor or socially disadvantaged people who own motor cars and who get parking infringement notices. Over the years I have certainly prosecuted a large number of people for various parking offences. Quite a number of them were disadvantaged, poor, or did not have much money, whether they were unemployed or students or whatever.
Mr Duby: Did you let them off?
MR STEFANIAK: If they had a good excuse, often they would be let off by the court, Craig, yes. Quite often those people simply cannot be expected to, and will not, avail themselves of an opportunity to write to a registrar. So they will be the ones affected by not receiving a courtesy notice. I do not know the percentage of persons who have their traffic infringement notices taken off windscreens or blown away; I do not think anyone does. But it does happen quite frequently, and I am somewhat amazed that the Labor Government, which professes to represent the socially disadvantaged - the poor and the downtrodden, the people who may have trouble looking after themselves - is now not prepared to agree to this very sensible amendment which would enable all people to get a reminder notice after 14 days, if they have not paid their fine by that stage, to cover those very real situations that do occur. I am very disappointed that the Government has done a complete turnaround on that principle, given what was said during the fluoride debate and also what was said during the debate on the Police Offences (Amendment) Bill when Government members were very keen to go in to bat for those whom they saw as the disadvantaged in relation to that.
I am also concerned to hear that my good friend, the NIMBY, Mr Michael Moore, will not be supporting us on this particular amendment. He seems to have adopted the Labor Party's attitude, and that is most disappointing. But, I suppose, what can one expect from a wine-and-cheese pinko
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