Mr DEAN (Windermere) - I promise not to mention the word 'photo' in my speech, Mr President. I do not want to cause the wrath of any people.

Mr President, I am conscious of the comments you made about this bill and debate on this bill and I will attempt to stick to it as best as possible. There are a couple of matters I wanted to refer to at the beginning. I will be supporting the bill because I believe the bill is a very responsible one and will assist police tremendously in the saving of time, and for a lot of other reasons as well.

Drivers who speed through intersections, and I am talking about intersections here in the first instance, and who proceed against red lights do not deserve the right to drive on public roads. I think people out there need to know and understand that it is not a right to drive; in fact it is a privilege that is extended to you by the people, by the State.

Ms Thorp - It's a right.

Mr DEAN - No, it is not a right, it is a privilege.

Mr Harriss - Hear, hear.

Mr DEAN - I also believe where we have people speeding through intersections and going against red lights that there ought to be an automatic suspension there, Mr President, and I am very strong in my resolve in that regard. It is irresponsible, absolutely irresponsible, and causes deaths.

There appears to be in this State and I suspect other States an attitude, and it was discussed on one of the documentary programs recently, that people seem to always want to shoot through amber lights at intersections for some reason or another. They see amber as green and a need to proceed through these lights. I would like to see cameras at all traffic?controlled intersections and I suppose down the line that is probably what we would aim for. I guess we will be looking at the most accident-prone intersections in the first instance for these red-light cameras and we will be moving ahead from there, I would suspect, to put in as many as we possibly can at the end of the day. I believe it is very important that we get them sited and it is important that we start to educate the public that if you go through these areas on red lights and you speed through these intersections you will get caught and at the end of the day you will pay by giving up your licence.

The position that I want to make is that this legislation will provide for the production of a photograph and that everything that is depicted in that photograph will be evidence of that fact without the need to call further evidence. Mr President, I see that as a very good move, a good direction to take because at the end of the day we see so many police hanging around courts for long periods of time for the purposes of giving evidence that can be produced in another way. This evidentiary manner that is referred to here is the right way to go, in my view. Technology today has improved so much, and we need to now use that technology in the best way that we possibly can. For that reason I will be supporting this bill.

At the same time we do need to get our processes right because the latest Victorian fiasco I think brought home to us very clearly, or should have done, the need to ensure that all of these devices are accurate and that they are checked on a regular basis. I would ask the Leader to identify to me what the circumstances are for the testing of the accuracy of these cameras, and in particular these cameras that are permanently placed. We know that the situation in Victoria also highlighted a case of many drivers being proceeded against where cameras were found to be malfunctioning, Mr President, and that caused a lot of trauma, embarrassment and frustration. In fact, in many instances licences were lost, and I have no doubt at the end of the day that would have impacted on the jobs of a lot of the people who lost those licences. We need to ensure that we do get this right.

I think the thing that was highlighted to me in that case was the fact that many of these people complained to the police, and unfortunately the police did not take any notice of them. These people then had to go out and obtain evidence and bring that back in some cases to the courts, as I understand it, to prove that their position was right. At the end of the day the Police department accepted it, as I understand it, and they carried out the tests on these devices and they found that many of them were horribly wrong. Now there is a position of many fines being refunded. I do not know what the situation will be in Victoria with regards the other reimbursement to people who have lost employment and all those other things.

In this State we need to make sure we have got it right. I have no problem with the certificates or the photographs being accepted as evidence of the offence, evidence of that vehicle proceeding through that intersection. The unfortunate thing here is that we do have many recalcitrants, and when they commit these offences they either steal registration plates or they have false registration plates on their vehicles and so on, so a photograph will be evidence of the fact that that car in the photograph proceeded through the intersection at high speed, or through the speed camera at high speed or whatever it is, but does not necessarily say that the owner of that vehicle was driving that vehicle, or that the owner of that registration plate is the offender. I have no difficulty with that, I accept that, provided we have these other things in place. If the Leader could just advise me on the frequency with which these speed cameras and devices are regularly checked, I would appreciate that very much, because that is an important issue when we start talking about this matter.