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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3006 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

The concerns that I raised in the in-principle stage have been met through these amendments. On the other hand, where I had been a bit more relaxed about removing some of the guidance that Mr Kaine talks about in terms of the magistrates, that will be back in and it will be quite clear that guidance will apply. I think it has been a very positive approach, and I commend these amendments to the Assembly.

MR WHITECROSS (9.06): Mr Speaker, I rise to indicate, as Mr Moore already has, that the Labor Party will be supporting these amendments. I believe that the appropriate people to decide on the precise sentence which fits a particular crime are the magistrates and the courts, rather than legislators making arbitrary decisions about general application without regard to the circumstances of particular cases. That is what the Government attempts to do here. The Government attempts to prescribe minimum sentences which will apply to people regardless of the circumstances of their case.

It may be that magistrates might choose to award penalties below the minimum sentences outlined in the Government's proposals on only very rare occasions; nevertheless, I believe it is a matter that the magistrates ought to be deciding rather than a matter that ought to be being decided in an arbitrary across-the-board way by legislators. I think it is a very perilous path we go down when legislators, in an attempt, as Mr Kaine has put it, to send a message, prescribe arbitrary minimum penalties. It is as likely to lead to injustices as to justice. I think we have to have some faith in our courts, which are, after all, a separate arm of government, to exercise their responsibilities to the community in an appropriate way, and the prescription of minimum sentences of the kind contemplated in this legislation is, I think, an inappropriate interference in their role.

Mr Speaker, as I said, nobody can doubt the seriousness of drink-driving, and the need to ensure that the community understands the dangers entailed in drink-driving, both for themselves and for others. People must be actively dissuaded from driving while under the influence of alcohol; but, Mr Speaker, quite frankly, this kind of legislation is a very blunt instrument indeed for persuading people of those effects.

I do not believe that continually ratcheting up the penalties in the way that the Government purports to do is the best way of educating the community about the dangers of drink-driving. I believe that appropriate penalties are important, and this legislation sets out an appropriate table of maximum penalties from which the magistrates can issue punishments suited to the seriousness of the crime in question; but those kinds of penalties have to be balanced with other ways of educating the community through active community education campaigns, peer group pressure, and all the other ways that we have at our disposal to ensure that those accidents which are contributed to by driver error, whether it is drink-driving or dangerous driving, or speeding, are averted. That ultimately is not about their knowledge of the law, and their knowledge of the seriousness of being penalised by the courts; it is about their attitudes, and attitudes cannot be changed simply by continuously ratcheting up the penalties.

Mr Speaker, the imposition of minimum penalties as proposed in this legislation is an inappropriate thing, and I support Mr Moore's amendments which we discussed among ourselves in considering our response to this Bill. Other elements of the proposed Bill, the table of penalties, the establishment of categories of penalty, et cetera, and more serious penalties available to the courts for repeat offenders, I think, are also appropriate

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