Mr  Pallas (Tarneit) —  I rise to  speak  on  the  Transport  (Compliance  and Miscellaneous) Amendment (On-the-Spot Penalty Fares)  Bill 2013 and to reinforce the comments made  by  the  member  for  Richmond  indicating  that  —  with  a reservation  relating  to  an  amendment to be moved by the opposition, which we believe should be supported, as it is both reasonable and practicable — we will not be  opposing  this  bill,  regardless  of  the government’s  willingness  or otherwise to  support the amendment  we will  propose. I  want to  spend just  a moment reinforcing the point that it is important for the government to take the contributions and the suggestions of this side  of the chamber, albeit that this side does not have the numbers to control the legislative flow, and to value the contributions made on this side and consider whether there is value in them.

I  understand the  basic  proposition underpinning this  bill,  and it is  quite apparent that there is an issue in terms of  erosion of a revenue base involving revenues the  state cannot reasonably be  expected to forgo  and  that therefore appropriate measures  need to  be put in place. This government has proven to be both imaginative and quite innovative when it comes to finding new ways to  gain fine revenue. Since the budget of 2010-11 the state’s fine revenue  has risen by 26 per cent, from slightly over $500 million to in excess of $700 million, which you  would have to say is a gold medal  effort when it comes to collecting gold. The  government has been able to increase the  revenue  from  fines  from  about $553.6 million  in  2010-11 to $714.9 million in 2013-14. That has increased the proportion of state revenue  coming  from  fines  by  almost  a  quarter. In the 2010-11 budget period  fines constituted about 3.6  per cent of  state  revenue; under this government, in the 2013-14 budget, fines sit at 4.3 per cent of state revenue. There has therefore been a very dramatic increase in fines.

We need go no further than  to remember the outrage that the previous opposition and now government —  and  indeed  the  previous Treasurer and now Minister for Police and Emergency Services — expressed on 3 May 2007 in this place about the state being heavily dependent for its revenue on, among a variety of other things, fines.

There is  absolutely  no  doubt that  a  properly constructed system  of  public transport depends upon  the  confidence  of  the community in the system and its continuing  commitment to  support  that system, which  will  ensure that  those services are run in an effective and cost-effective way. The member for Richmond took  us through the report of the Auditor-General of August 2012 regarding fare evasion on  the  public transport system. He also made some telling points about the nature of fare evasion, being either accidental or part of a more contrived, well-thought-through  and  continuing  approach.   We  know  that  there  are  a substantial proportion of commuters — at  the moment we do not know how many — who continue not to pay.

As a result of that, we understand that in terms of the  public transport system a  very substantial number of  infringements were identified last  year, 150 000 infringement notices having been  issued, and there is a reduced capacity to fix up  what is effectively not  a slow leak but a  very substantial erosion of  the revenue base  — an entitlement  that the  state has  every right  to expect  to receive as a consequence of providing a service that does not come free.

Indeed the Auditor-General  made  it very clear that there is a very substantial contribution  from  the  state  of  Victoria  towards  the provision  of  public transport.  Subsidies from  the state,  as he  states  on page  1 of  his report entitled Fare Evasion on Public Transport, grew by 65  per  cent between 2005-06 and 2010-11,  or from $950  million to  $1.56 billion.  In 2010-11  the cost  of operating public transport services  was $2.2 billion.  Thirty per cent of  that amount came from fares but 70 per cent of it came from government subsidies.

The fact is that the community is getting a very substantial investment from the state in terms of the provision of public transport, and quite often that is not acknowledged.  In  recurrent  terms that  commitment  is  very  appreciable.  It demonstrates that the community  cannot  afford  a  situation  where essentially there are  some who  see it  as their  privilege or  their entitlement to choose whether to pay.

I have heard it stated  many times  that justice  delayed is  justice denied.  A quick, efficient and equitable process that allows fare evaders to be dealt with on the spot has much to commend it. I am concerned — and I restate the concerns of  the member  for  Richmond —  about the  idea that  the transacting  of cash payments opens  up not only the prospect of risk to the individuals involved but the perception and the opportunity for misapplication of those funds.

That is not to  suggest  anything nefarious or institutional in the behaviour of authorised officers who seek to  get that money, but  it  opens them up to  this criticism. We need to ensure that authorised officers are beyond  any suggestion of impropriety, and the best way to do  that is to frame the  legislative scheme to ensure that that is the case.

There is also much to commend about a process with a mechanism that we all apply in our lives and  in our  engagement in  the community that goes specifically to risk and  reward. Bad behaviour  is basically  weighed up  by those  who lack  a belief  that they  have an obligation to pay fares. They weigh up the likelihood that  they  may be  caught  behaving  in this  poor  and inappropriate  fashion. Effectively, as the member for Richmond has indicated, they chance their arm. If there is a risk that they will be  caught, and if that risk increases, that is a good thing.

Of  course  the  reward  for  being able to successfully evade  paying  is  that consistently, perhaps as a matter of a long-established course of conduct, these individuals are effectively able to steal  money from the state of Victoria. The state is entitled to that money for  providing a service but does not receive it when people do not pay. Quite frankly that is  inappropriate, and  the state has every  right  to  put  in  place mechanisms to increase the  likelihood  of  the apprehension of such people.

The increased capacity to  fine is a good thing. My concern remains that perhaps the increased capacity  to fine may be  offset by the reduction in  the level of the fine from the $212 fine to the $75 on-the-spot fine. My concern continues to be that that  level of  penalty may  well persuade  those who have a risk-reward assessment of their poor conduct that it is cheaper and that the risk is less to them and  to the community and that they should therefore continue that conduct, which costs us all substantially.

Nonetheless I can indicate that the opposition does not oppose this bill.