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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2622 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

Let us go on to Tasmania, another Labor State. If you do not want to accept coalition States, let us go to Tasmania. There was a decline of about 75 per cent in the number of vehicles exceeding the speed limit and a reduction of about 50 per cent in the number of fatalities in the first three years of camera operation and a 23 per cent fall in serious injuries on roads where cameras were used.

Let us go on to another State. Labor in New South Wales said that the number of motorists exceeding the speed limit over 10 kilometres has declined by about 30 per cent. In Western Australia there has been a 47 per cent reduction in the number of motorists exceeding the speed limit since the introduction of cameras.

Mr Hargreaves and the Labor Party should withdraw their amendment because it is an appalling amendment. If you were going more than 45 kilometres an hour over the speed limit, which would be a far more serious driving offence, and you were caught by a speed camera you would get away with it under Labor. They will simply say and do anything if they think that it will curry favour with the people of Canberra, but the reality is that Canberrans actually support the use of speed cameras.

We do not have that just from the NRMA report, Mr Speaker. Last year, AAMI, in quite a blaze of media attention, produced a report that Canberrans had said, "Yes, we know that we travel fast. Yes, we know that we drive fast. We have good cars and we have good roads. We are not going to stop until you enforce the law". The speed cameras will allow us to do so, Mr Speaker. The Labor Party now live in isolation on road safety. The Labor Party now show their ignorance in regard to the safety of the people they purport to represent. Statistics are important, but the real message is that speed cameras do change driver attitudes and behaviour and they cut speeding. That is the road safety outcome that we need and can achieve in the ACT.

Mr Speaker, the conclusion has been reached by the Labor Party that the use of speed cameras is a revenue-raising exercise. Let us look at the deployment of them. Let us go a step further and debunk the theories that Mr Hargreaves has spun. The cameras will be deployed strictly on the basis of road safety considerations and the camera locations are not being chosen for a revenue-raising function; they are being chosen by a camera enforcement safety committee. On that committee will be the NRMA, the AFP and Urban Services; so we will have a community group representing the needs of the community on this enforcement committee. They will make certain that we use these cameras effectively to target speed. Of course, they will supplement existing radar and laser interception messages.

Mr Speaker, there is some thought in the Labor Party that we are going to spring their usage on the unwary population. The fact is that we have talked about it for some eight months. There have been numerous articles in the paper, on the television and on the radio. Not only will we be doing so but also we will be telling people where we are doing so. We will put up signs saying that you are actually entering an area where a speed camera might be used and we will publish the locations where speed cameras will be used.

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