Page 2759 - Week 09 - Thursday, 27 September 2007
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offence under the guise of interfering with somebody’s health. You could, therefore, see imprisonment of a maximum of five years applied there. But we still do not think that the laws that are available are tough enough to bring a stop to this behaviour. The point is that those elements of law are still too loose to be able to be cleanly applied to the offence of throwing rocks or dropping concrete blocks onto cars and buses. That is why we have floated the idea of introducing discrete legislation. We would prefer not to say, “Let’s charge somebody with attempted murder.” We would much prefer not to do that, and if we do ask the question about that, it is simply an exercise in the frustration that we have with the legislation as it now stands.
Why do we think we need to see legislation amended or strengthened? Because while the government’s education and information program about this issue looks to be, on the face of it, an okay package, I think everybody in this country realises that education and information programs aimed at that lunatic one per cent fringe of society who do not care if they behave recklessly and who do not seem to think through the consequences of that behaviour and that it may, indeed, kill somebody, are not going to bite, they are not going to get through. So you have got to back up your education and information programs with very clear, discrete legislation. That is why we have mused as to whether or not discrete legislation should be introduced so that we can ram home the point to people. If the education program is up on the TV screen they might think, “Oh, my godfather, I might get 14 or 15 years. I could get 14 or 15 years imprisonment if I’m caught in the act of throwing rocks.” And why? “Because if I throw a rock at a moving car, the combined velocities of me throwing a rock at a car travelling in my direction at 80 kilometres per hour is potentially fatal.”
It is potentially fatal, and that is perhaps what some people do not realise when, on a Saturday night going home from the pub, they want to have a bit of a giggle and they think, “I’ll have a bit of fun. I’ll hurl this rock into this oncoming traffic.” They need to know that potentially they may put somebody in hospital with a very serious head injury, or worse—there is an outside chance they just might kill somebody. We think the only way to underscore the education and information program is to talk about tougher legislation. So that is the point that the opposition was making about that.
Mr Corbell did say that he hoped that we were not just making a political point in raising today a motion to try and identify a select committee. I can assure the minister and I can assure the government that we are not playing political point scoring here today. As the shadow transport minister, I am concerned that something needs to be done to protect our bus fleet, our bus drivers and our passengers. That is initially where I have been coming from on this. That is my job as a shadow minister. It seems to me that there has not been any concrete action taken by government to do something about this. That is why we are debating this today. We are concerned that not enough is being done. Of course, the opposition is a great supporter of the concept of trying to attract people out of their cars to catch buses, but the public needs to have confidence that our bus transportation system is safe. It has got to be safe; that is one of the perspectives we are coming from.
I was pleased to see the minister talk about a dedicated, targeted policing operation. That is good; it is about time that we saw that. I do not know when that targeted policing operation was established, but after 58 incidents occurring over six or more
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