Page 2202 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
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is not picking up on. So we listen to them and, in listening to them, I think it is important that we introduce legislation which the government may not pick up on for whatever reason.
I take this opportunity to mention some of the ideas we have developed through our own consultations. These involve areas that people want the government to focus on, and they may or may not be doing so. They are issues that were not covered by the Chief Minister in what he said today. There may well be some further legislation that does cover them, and that is fine. But I think it is important to focus on the sorts of priorities that deliver real benefits and outcomes for the community, whether they are raised by the opposition or the government.
There are a number of bills that we will be seeking to introduce. No doubt the government will disagree with many of them; hopefully, there will be areas where they do not. We will see. One bill will seek to amend the relevant act to make it easier for existing schools to start up new campuses. There is a glitch, especially in relation to the non-government school area, where the two-year rule applies to an existing school that wants to start a new campus. We think the two-year rule is fine where a new schools is to be set up, but where you have an established school that simply wants to go to a new campus, we see the two-year rule as being an unnecessary restriction. So we will seek to amend the act to ensure that that can occur.
A bill will be introduced to ensure that administrative appeals proceedings are less adversarial by requiring governments to provide more assistance. We will seek to make amendments to the Freedom of Information Act to take out conclusive certificates. In laymen’s terms, that is a certificate that puts all of the government’s documents that are listed on it beyond judicial review. In other words, the AAT at this stage cannot review them.
We will seek to make improvements to the Litter Act, especially in the areas of charity bins and abandoned shopping trolleys. There will be legislation to ensure that people who commit acts of vandalism, such as involving graffiti, by order, will have to clean up the acts that they commit. We will reintroduce a bill, which has not got up, involving roadside drug testing. It is scary to note that the police indicate that often four or five times as many people that they test are drug affected rather than just alcohol affected. It is terribly important that we take steps in that regard. Other states have done so or have started to do so; we have not yet done so, and our bill will deal with that matter.
We will seek an amendment to the Crimes Act regarding the throwing of missiles at road vehicles. Sadly, this is cropping up more and more now, especially in relation to buses. It would be a tragedy if a bus driver were hit; there could be a lot of people travelling on the bus and there could be potentially a life-threatening accident. People in New South Wales have died as a result of such incidents. Accordingly, we will introduce a bill to amend the Crimes Act regarding the throwing of rocks and other missiles at road vehicles, be they buses or other vehicles.
Another issue is on-the-spot fines for street offences. In fact, I will be introducing a bill in relation to that tomorrow. The attorney made some comments about on-the-spot
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