NSW government to take councils on over ticketless parking fines 05:22

Well, I don't know if you've noticed this, but I certainly have. When you're parking in a spot, you think it's all good. You might have overstayed your welcome or something, but you wouldn't know until, I don't know, 10 days, two weeks later when up on your Service NSW app pops a fine or you get one in the mail. Now, these are these ticketless parking fines. Let me know if you've had these. 131873. I've always been of the view they are unethical.

that if you get caught in a parking spot and you get fined in a parking spot, the ticket should be applied to your car. That way...

If you're in the right, and sometimes you are, you can actually gather some evidence to then mount a case to Revenue NSW as to why that parking fine should not stand. But local councils are issuing ticketless parking fines at record rates. So there's been a 49% jump in the use of the system in the 2023-2024 financial year. And I noted that the Minister for Finance, Courtney Hussos,

She reckons it fails to meet community expectations. But what can the government do about it? The Minister's on the line for us. Minister, thank you for your time. Good afternoon, Chris. Thanks so much for having me on. Can you force councils to bring back the paper tickets?

Yeah, so, Chris, we're looking at a range of options and I completely agree with you in the concerns that you've outlined in your introduction there. In March, I wrote to councils and I outlined those exact same reasons. I don't think the system is fair because it doesn't give drivers the chance to collect evidence if they want to dispute the fine. It's not as effective as a deterrent to immediately change behaviour. And like you say, drivers can get fined multiple times before they receive the fine in the mail.

So I gave them some time to come up with their own solutions and to...

be fair to them. About 30 of them have indicated publicly or back to Revenue NSW through the process we've established that they're open to fixing or to adding some fairness to the scheme. But the new data today shows us that we just have to act. And a 49% increase in ticketless parking, it's just not fair. Isn't that interesting? Is there any reasoning as to why a 49% increase in ticketless parking fines, yet there's been a 22% drop

in the old-fashioned ticket parking fines? Yeah, so we don't have access to local data collection methods or... Sorry, to local data that councils hold around collection methods or numbers of ranges or anything like that. But what I can see is that there's been such an exponential increase in ticketless parking and a fall away in the traditional parking fines. I think it points to a problem, and that's why I'm saying today we're going to step in. OK. What's step in look like?

Yeah. So since we wrote to the councils in March, we started looking at the different policy levers we've got and we're sort of deep in that work at the moment. We're going to have an announcement soon, but we're not ruling anything out. Well, when you say so, can you give us some sort of examples, just some broad stroke stuff? Yeah.

Yeah, so some of the things that have been canvassed is additional signage or, you know, last resort would be legislation. I really wanted to give councils the opportunity to come up with their own solutions and full credit out in Dubbo, they're issuing little business cards onto the screens of councils, onto the screens of cars now with a little QR code. In Inner West, they've actually just continued to issue fines. I know. They use revenue in New South Wales. Yeah, I know, I'm across that.

Collect the money, but they're still just going with it. So I think I really thought councils, I wanted them to come up with their own kind of common sense solution. I just don't think that that's going to happen and so we're going to have to step in. What's their justification for going ticketless?

Yeah, so it was a scheme that was introduced by the previous government. There's been a couple of different reasons that have been given to me. I just have to say I just don't think it passes a common sense – I just don't think it's a common sense approach. I think people expect that if they've done the wrong thing, they expect that immediate notification. Okay.

For me, there's an ethical thing here. It feels a little bit cheeky and a little bit underhanded just to book someone and then walk off and not let them know, right?

Yeah, look, and I've got to say, as a government, we've ended the previous government's secret speed cameras. We don't support secret parking fines. Like, I agree with you. I think there's a level of fairness and transparency that's expected from the community. And fair cop, if you've done the wrong thing, then you take the fine. But if there's an extenuating circumstance and you want to be able to challenge it, you want to be able to take a photo at the time or you want to know that you've parked in the wrong spot so you don't do it the next day as well. When's the last time you got a parking ticket?

I haven't had one for quite some time. I'm a very good customer of Revenue NSW, Minister. You're a frequent shopper, huh? Oh, mate.

Anyway, I appreciate it. I really wish to be consulting with you about the different methods. No, just put the ticket on. Just put the ticket on. You've got to bring it back. I appreciate you coming on. And, you know, I don't think anyone in New South Wales would begrudge you passing some legislation to force councils to alert people, hey, we've just booked you. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks so much, Chris. That's the Minister for Finance, Courtney Hussos.