Page 4392 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 30 November 1994
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MS SZUTY (5.04): Most of these amendments are self-explanatory. The one that I will mention is the proposed amendment to proposed subsection 4C(2), which I think strengthens the provision quite considerably. It will now read:
A person shall not for the purposes of avoiding payment of a fare for a journey tender to be validated a ticket ...
I think that is a much stronger provision than before. Without the amendment, some ambiguity could arise and the purported offence could be challenged further down the line. I think the amendment is an improvement to the Bill. The remaining amendments as proposed by the Minister are self-explanatory. Most of them arise from the passage of the Statute Law Revision (Penalties) Bill, which the Assembly dealt with some time ago. They basically deal with matters which are redundant under this particular Bill.
MR HUMPHRIES (5.05): Madam Speaker, I am just being a bit picky, but obviously this amendment flows to some extent from comments made by the Legal Affairs Committee in its report on the Statute Law Revision (Penalties) Bill. We welcome the movement on the part of the Government. I am still a little bit puzzled as to how it is possible to tender a ticket for the purposes of avoiding payment of a fare for a journey. If you have a valid ticket, not a forged ticket, then surely you cannot possibly be avoiding the payment of a fare by tendering the ticket. Perhaps the Minister could explain how that works. I do not quite understand how it works.
MR LAMONT (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Housing and Community Services, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (5.06): Are you talking about proposed section 4C(1)(b)?
Mr Humphries: Proposed section 4C.
MR LAMONT: Proposed section 4C(2) relates to the offence of tendering a ticket taken from a book of tickets, not being a book of tickets purchased by that person. In other words, if you thieve a ticket from somebody else and it can be demonstrated that that is the case, then you are in fact committing an offence in presenting that ticket.
Mr Humphries: Is not the thieving the offence, not the tendering of the ticket?
MR LAMONT: Both.
Amendments agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 8 and 9, by leave, taken together, and agreed to.
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