Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Mr President, I will be making a fairly brief contribution to this bill and I think it is fair to say that young people are over-represented in serious accidents and fatalities on our roads. Any changes to any act that is likely to make our roads safer I think would have everybody's support.

I really do wonder how serious we are about trying to prevent accidents on our roads, and particularly with young people. We have had a lot of discussion over a long period of time now in relation to the size and horsepower of cars that a learner driver, and P-platers in particular, can drive. I have seen learner drivers doing some very stupid things in some very big and powerful cars. All some P-platers are really interested in doing is getting some high-powered vehicle and lowering it, and adding extras for the purposes of skylarking around and doing all of those things that they should not be doing -

Ms Forrest - Hooning?

Mr DEAN - You are right, absolutely hooning. When learning to ride a motorcycle you are restricted to a size of motorcycle, depending on your position with your licence. I am not quite sure of the timing, but it is 12 months, two years, three years or whatever in your grading of licences before you can go up to a fairly high-powered motorcycle. If that is the case with motorcycles, why doesn't it apply to vehicles? It quite astounds me. What the legislators are saying -

Mr Parkinson - Mainly because all vehicles are high powered. They are all lethal weapons.

Mr DEAN - No they are not. You can get some small vehicles that do not have the power and the grunt that some of these other vehicles have.

Mr Parkinson - What, called Vespa?

Mr DEAN - Well, it is the same with a motorcycle, I suppose. I would say that you could certainly kill yourself with a 600cc motorcycle or motor scooter very quickly as well.

Mr Parkinson - I understand your point.

Mr DEAN - I am saying there is a greater chance of that occurring, and I think the law of averages would say this: the bigger the machine, the higher-powered that machine is, the more likely you are to probably abuse it and have an accident. I wonder why we do not really seriously consider looking at that.

The other point I want to make, Mr President - and it is often referred to - is the number of passengers a learner driver can have in the vehicle and the number of passengers a P-plate driver can have in a vehicle. You often see P-platers driving around with a car full of passengers - three in the back, another one in the front - and it really is, in many instances, a recipe for danger. One can only think back to - and most in this Chamber would remember - the very horrific accident that occurred on the east coast near Swansea a number of years ago now, where six young people were killed in a vehicle travelling at very high speed.

Mr Parkinson - I remember that.

Mr DEAN - The Leader would remember that accident. It was an absolutely horrific accident. It took the lives of six very young people. I would have thought from that we might have learned that there ought to be some restriction, Mr President, on the number of people that can be in these cars.

These amendments will certainly help. They certainly ought to improve the driving of learner drivers and P-platers but I do not think it goes far enough.

If you create or commit an offence at a P1 stage you go back to the beginning of that stage and commence again, but if you commit an offence in a P1 stage, as I interpret it, and you move forward to the P2 stage before you are convicted of the offence you have committed when you were at the P1 stage, you simply do not suffer a similar penalty. I am just reading the second reading speech:

'A person who progresses to the P2 stage before being convicted for that offence will be required to spend an additional amount of time in that P2 stage.'.

Why shouldn't they have to return to the P1 stage and commence it all again? That is when the offence was committed, back at that time and in that stage. I wonder why that is there and perhaps the Leader can explain that to me.

The other point I wanted to make, Mr President, is - and there has been a little bit in the papers recently about this - and that is the number of people that we have out there trained to carry out the licensing test. I ask the Leader if he can address this in his answer to the debate and in fact identify just how many we have out there right at this present time carrying out these tests, and particularly in regard to location because it is said that in some areas there are certainly not sufficient numbers there and the waiting list to get the licences is quite high - and this now will create a position of wanting further testing officers. I note here there are 9.5 full-time additional testing officers to ensure minimum testing delays - that is occurring - but I wonder how much or what impact that will have when we have now increased the categories and the time that people must undergo to take these tests and so on. So I was wondering where we are going with that.

I think we would have all read in the paper recently, Mr President, the situation of a gentleman living at Woodsdale where his son went for a licence test and he committed the cardinal sin, apparently at the end of the test, by crossing over and doing a U-turn over a double white line, which is a pretty serious traffic offence. It is not surprising that he did not get his licence.

Ms Forrest - With some of the things that they are given and they don't do them right, it is an instant failure, isn't it?

Mr DEAN - Yes, it is instant failure and that is an instant failure point, crossing over a double white line. I remember that from my police officer days when I was carrying out the testing of drivers myself. In actual fact, during those periods there was quite often a time when you would be taking someone for a test and you would do everything possible to get them back home as quickly as you could and get out of the car, because of some of the things they put you through. It was a bit of a worry, I can assure you. In this situation I think we need to make sure that we have sufficient numbers of people testing these drivers. As he said, he is now required to drive his son from Woodsdale through to the zinc works at Lutana, a distance of some 100 kilometres for the return trip. He has to do that for at least three months.

Mr Parkinson - The one that was in the paper the other day?

Mr DEAN - Yes, he had a kombi van. As he said, at least for the next three months he has to take his son because it is going to take that time before they can book him in to be retested. It would seem, from what I read, that his driving was quite good except for the fact that he panicked and committed a very bad traffic offence. It is not surprising he has to be retested but why do they have to wait three months for that, and probably longer? Perhaps the Leader could address this issue.

On the personal side of this, I know only too well what can happen to young people and P-plate drivers. I understand some of the problems they have and some of the serious situations they get into. My young brother was killed in a motor vehicle accident when a young P-plate driver was driving the vehicle. It was not through speed or drink, it was simply through his inability to properly control his car. That is what it was found to be, on a gravel road. I only know too well why we need to ensure that our learner drivers and P-plate drivers are experienced and know how to handle a car properly when they get behind the wheel. It is not a right, as everybody says, it is a privilege to drive a vehicle.

The other thing I wanted to mention - and I have referred to this just about every time I have spoken in relation to traffic issues - it is good to see that a type of reward is being provided for young people in some situations. I think that is a very good way to improve driving and driver habits. I wonder why we do not go further and provide those same incentives to people who have been driving for a long time. There is nothing better than to be able to say - and I guess it is sometimes just luck - that you have never been involved in an accident or you have not committed an offence, or you might have committed an offence but not been caught. The fact that you have no convictions is a great thing after you have been driving for 30 or 40 years, but there is no incentive provided to those people at all for retaining such a good driving record. I would like to see that extended much further than just to young people and young drivers. I think it is necessary, in my view. You wield the big hammer; you commit an offence, you are in trouble and you will be fined, but we do not reward those who are doing the right thing. With that contribution, I will be supporting the bill.