Madam President, I rise on behalf of Family First to make a brief contribution on the Crimes Amendment (Police Pursuits) Bill.<\/p>\n
The object of this Bill is to create a new indictable offence of failing to stop a vehicle and driving the vehicle recklessly, or at a speed or in a manner dangerous to others, after becoming aware that police officers are in pursuit of the vehicle. The Bill before the House also makes other consequential amendments including license disqualification.<\/p>\n
Discussion of the Bill was prompted by circumstances surrounding the death of Skye Sassine, who was killed when motorists fleeing a police pursuit struck the card she was travelling in. Since 1994, 60 people have died in police pursuits, including 19-month old Skye Sassine.<\/p>\n
The Bill creates a new offence under Section 51B of the Crimes Act 1900, targeting people who participate in police pursuits while driving in a reckless or dangerous manner.<\/p>\n
There are existing offences for people who flee from police, including dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm or death that carry maximum penalties of between 11 and 14 years. At the most serious end of the offences spectrum, a driver who kills another person during a police pursuit can be charged with manslaughter or murder.<\/p>\n
This new offence is designed for circumstances where an individual flees a police pursuit in a vehicle but where no one is injured or killed. Specifically, the new offence will involve three elements. First, a person knows that police are in pursuit of their vehicle and that they are required to stop; second, they do not stop their vehicle; and third, they drive their vehicle recklessly or at a speed or in a manner dangerous to others.<\/p>\n
The maximum penalties for this offence are three years imprisonment for the first offence and five years for second or subsequent offences. The new offence also introduces automatic driver license disqualification of three years for a first offence and five years for second or subsequent offences.<\/p>\n
However, I concur the concerns raised by the Leader of the Opposition in relation to Schedule 1B. Schedule 1B Police Pursuits states “The driver of a vehicle who knows that police officers are in pursuit of the vehicle and that the driver is required to stop the vehicle.”<\/p>\n
This is the contentious loophole with the onus on police to prove errant drivers knew they were being pursued. The current Bill as it stands is not workable with this loophole. The Bill requires police to prove a driver knew they were being pursued and were required to stop. This will allow offenders to escape prosecution. The law must change to place the onus to the driver.<\/p>\n
Madam President, I thank the Government for introducing this legislation and I commend it to the House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madam President, I rise on behalf of Family First to make a brief contribution on the Crimes Amendment (Police Pursuits) Bill. The object of this Bill is to create a new indictable offence of failing to stop a vehicle and driving the vehicle recklessly, or at a speed or in a manner dangerous to others, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}