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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3007 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

inclusions in the Bill, and the Labor Party will be supporting the amendments. We will be supporting Mr Moore's amendments because we believe that they restore the correct balance between the role of the courts and the role of the legislature, and ensure that the courts have full opportunity to do justice where justice needs to be done.

MS HORODNY (9.11): We will be supporting Mr Moore's amendments on the definition of the repeat offender. It does seem unreasonable that a person who is charged but has that charge dismissed, or a person to whom the court gives a good behaviour bond for up to three years without a conviction being recorded, should then be regarded as a repeat offender for up to five years after that court case. The court can give a conditional release of an offender without conviction only in cases where there are extenuating circumstances or the offence is of a trivial nature. By its nature, a section 556A release ensures that the person does not have a conviction recorded against their name, yet the Government's proposal is implying that the person has been convicted in the past. This seems quite illogical to us. We will not be supporting the Government's definition of repeat offenders.

We will also be supporting Mr Moore's amendment on mandatory and minimum sentence requirements, and the rest of his amendments to this Bill which have the objective of deleting the mandatory and minimum penalties currently included in the Bill. We support the idea of a graduated scale of penalties based on the blood alcohol concentration of the offender because it is quite clear that the risk of road accidents increases markedly with increases in the blood alcohol concentration of drivers. We support the desire of the Government to send a strong message to the community that driving while drunk is not acceptable and that offenders will be appropriately penalised. However, it is the role of the Assembly to set maximum penalties for particular offences through legislation. We believe that to set minimum penalties interferes with the role of the judiciary in determining the appropriate level of penalties in individual cases by taking into account all the circumstances surrounding the particular offence.

Mr Moore also proposes that any person who loses their licence should be able to apply to the court for a special licence. The Greens have some reservations about Mr Moore's amendment here because we do not want to make it too easy for people who have lost their licence to obtain a new one. The ultimate sanction for drivers who break the rules is to prevent them from driving. Fines can be paid relatively easily, at least by some people; but people can be affected much more significantly if their licence to drive is taken away from them. This is recognised in the existing provision that allows people to apply for special probationary licences if their normal licence is suspended or cancelled.

This clause raises the issue of how many chances a person who has broken the road rules should get to retain their licence. I believe that people who need to drive motor vehicles for their work have an extra responsibility to take special care that they do not lose their licence. I am inclined towards the view that if someone drives in such a bad way that they lose their licence they should cop this penalty. I would much prefer to keep irresponsible drivers off the road so that everyone can feel safer than to allow these people back on the road straightaway through getting a special probationary licence. On the other hand,

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