Is Robdog Johnson capable of independent thought?

[The Saint]

Does this guy have any ideas that he doesn't nick from the UK?

In this state kids do not need to be 17 to get a driver's licence. They can apply for a driver's licence when they are 16 years of age. Kids in the United Kingdom cannot even apply for a driver's licence until they are 17 years of age. That should be the case in this state.

The Premier has suddenly realised that the government did not go far enough with the hoon legislation and that holding a car for 48 hours was no deterrent whatsoever, particularly to young hoons, who would wear it as a badge of honour. This is a government that refused to agree to a simple and honest amendment to increase the impounding period from 48 hours to seven days. We on this side of the house thought that seven days was more than reasonable; in fact, some of my colleagues said that it should be 30 days ...

I recently visited the United Kingdom and its prisons, and if there is any pleasure in visiting prisons, it was very pleasurable. I also visited some police facilities, including those at Hendon. I met with police officers of different ranks. I asked them what they did about the matter of vehicle insurance. Many drivers in Western Australia are driving illegally or with suspended licences. If their licence is suspended, technically the insurance component of their registration is invalid. In the UK, drivers must have third party insurance. It is not done through the government as it is done here when people pay for their registration sticker.

I like the registration sticker because it is a clear sign that the vehicle is insured and is registered inasmuch as road tax has been paid, which means that the driver is covered by third party insurance. In the UK, the circumstances are slightly different. A vehicle displays a road-tax disc, but third party insurance is paid for and covered through insurance companies. UK police have a huge database. A vehicle must have third party insurance for not only personal injury, but also property damage. That is a good idea if somebody has a crash and his insurance is not fully

comprehensive. If somebody in Western Australia is not insured, people can go whistle. The chances are that somebody who causes an accident is not insured and the person must be pursued through the courts.

Circumstances in the UK are very different. If a person is caught driving a vehicle that has no third party insurance, never mind fully comprehensive insurance, the police take the vehicle. If that person cannot produce a valid insurance certificate within seven days, does the minister know what the UK police do with the vehicle?

Mr J.C. Kobelke: No.

Mr R.F. JOHNSON: They crush it; they end up with a cube of metal. There are different constabularies throughout the UK, some of which are very inventive and imaginative. Some drug dealers drive BMWs and

other expensive cars costing £50 000. One of the major police stations had a whole range of cars in front of it, such as BMWs, Mercedes and Jaguars, over which big signs were displayed. A huge sign on one of these
beautiful cars might read, “This car belonged to a drug dealer.” The sign on a Jaguar might read, “This car belonged to somebody who was not insured.” The following week outside the police station there would be

cubes of metal, and on one cube a sign might read, “This car used to belong to a drug dealer”, or “This car belonged to somebody who did not bother to insure his vehicle.” It had a massive impact.

If I was in the UK and owned a vehicle that had not been insured for third party and I let somebody else drive it, that car would be crushed. If the person driving a vehicle was picked up and could not produce an insurance
certificate indicating that the vehicle was insured, it would be taken from that person.

A show on television recently about the United Kingdom cops showed them picking up a young bloke who was speeding. I think he might have had a couple of drinks as well. He was pulled over and the vehicle database showed that the vehicle was not insured. He was asked whose car it was, and he said it was his girlfriend’s mother’s car. The officer told him that he did not think he would be popular with his girlfriend’s mother,

because the car would be crushed. The police took the vehicle there and then, and after a week - the time given to produce an insurance certificate - the vehicle was crushed. It is a good learning experience and it will encourage people to insure their cars.

I have a similar view about people who commit road rage offences. The Premier said he would prefer to channel the money back into an organisation such as the Road Safety Council. I am not necessarily opposed to that, but examples must be given. If an expensive car was involved, it would be better to sell it off and donate the proceeds to a charity that has a connection with road trauma.

The UK police do not crush all the vehicles. They keep some of them for covert operations. It is a great idea to use vehicles that belonged to crooks to carry out covert operations on other crooks. I know that it works. I spoke to a direct entry officer at the academy. He was a sergeant in the UK and was under the impression that he would be a sergeant here, but he is disappointed that he is only a senior constable. I asked him about the UK legislation and he said it is one of the best pieces of legislation the police have had for years. He said it really works.

Is it true that today there are tyre marks on the grass in the grounds of Parliament House?

Dr K.D. Hames: Yes, just outside.

Mr R.F. JOHNSON: There has been hoon behaviour in the precincts of Parliament House. Parliament House has CCTV cameras and I hope to goodness that whoever is responsible has been caught. Of course, WA is
lacking in CCTV cameras because the government has not made a commitment to catch people who are acting antisocially. CCTV cameras are just as important to this legislation as they are to catching people who come out of nightclubs to bash people. The tremendous CCTV coverage in the UK is the reason that so many people are caught committing driving offences. There are more CCTV cameras in the UK, a tiny island, than in the whole of Europe and that is the reason the UK police are able to catch offenders.

Mr J.E. McGrath: That is how they caught the bombers.

Mr R.F. JOHNSON: Exactly. In the UK, CCTV cameras are on every street and the police are able to catch people who are driving dangerously on the motorways and committing other crimes. We certainly need CCTVs
in Perth. We need them in all our major towns. There is no question in my mind about that. We cannot expect local governments to fund that sort of thing. If we want to give our police service the best equipment possible, I

say to the minister that we need to ensure that the police are able to access a tremendous system of CCTV cameras. The ones that are in Perth are all funded by the City of Perth. The government does not fund any.


We could do with these cameras in Mandurah because of the tragedies that have occurred down there. We have some in Joondalup but nowhere near enough. They are funded by the City of Joondalup or different nightclubs or private businesses. In this boom time, where we will have a $2 billion surplus at the end of the day, the minister needs to try to convince his colleague the Treasurer that he needs some funding to help the police do their job. We need to have these CCTV cameras in strategic locations. The minister made a big hoo-ha about these mobile CCTV cameras catching all these graffiti vandals. Do members know how many vandals have been caught? The police have caught six. I do not think the cameras will catch too many.

The other big difference between the minister’s bill and my bill is that my bill provides that the vehicle can be crushed. This is obviously something that the minister does not want to do. However, it is something that the minister’s dear friend and messiah in the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, brought in. If the vehicle was crushed, it would send a clear message to those people in the community who drive dangerously and put the lives of other people at risk. Sometimes it is good to make a statement.

That is what Tony Blair introduced in the United Kingdom. If a person in the United Kingdom drives a vehicle that is not covered by third party insurance, the vehicle is crushed. The other option is that the police can hang onto the vehicle and use it for covert operations. I have discussed this with many police officers in the UK. They think it is great. It
works. It sends a fantastic message to those people. The police in the UK also use the option of crushing the vehicles of drug traffickers and people who commit those sorts of crimes. Quite a few vehicles in the UK have been crushed. I recently saw a television program about how, in some states in America, vehicles are being crushed all the time. That program showed clearly the big machines that are used to crush the vehicles. It was fantastic to see that. I think it has a psychological effect on the people who own the cars if they can see their pride and joy being crushed.

Dr K.D. Hames: Do they make them watch it or something?

Mr R.F. JOHNSON: They actually do make them watch it. It was very interesting. In America, three or four cars are crushed down on top of each other, and they end up flat. I think the vehicle should be crushed into a cube so that we can drop the cube down onto the table and send a message to the public that this used to be the car of a hoon driver. That would send the clearest message that we could ever send. We must send a clear message.

The third option is probably the most controversial. I love it and think it would send the clearest message to irresponsible drivers in Western Australia that their driving will not be tolerated. The commissioner is to be allowed to order a vehicle to be crushed. It would probably be a vehicle at the lower end of the market and would not be worth selling because it would not fetch a great deal of money. The police probably would not want to use it in a covert operation either, although they could if they wanted to. A fantastic message would be sent to irresponsible road users if they saw a crushed cube of metal that used to be a car. Some people might say that that is too draconian and that we cannot crush someone’s car. If someone in the United Kingdom is caught driving a vehicle without third party insurance, the vehicle will be crushed, no matter what its value. The police in the UK also crush vehicles that have been used by drug dealers and other criminals. There was a classic case of a very large police station in the Midlands in the UK that put great big signs on top of a couple of Mercedes and BMWs and a Range Rover indicating that the cars used to belong to a drug dealer, to a money launderer and so on. It was all to do with the crimes that the criminals who owned those vehicles had committed. A week later there were five great cubes of metal outside the police station with signs showing that the cubes of metal used to be cars that used to be owned by a drug dealer etc. That sent a very clear message to criminals. Some people will
continue to flout the law and drive their vehicles without third party insurance. We will never stop habitual criminals or offenders because it is impossible to do so. However, the number of offenders in the UK who drive without third party insurance has dropped dramatically because people know that if they drive without third party insurance and get caught, their car will be crushed.

I want to say just one other thing. Some people have asked me what will happen if the car belongs to somebody else. It is very simple: under this legislation the same will happen to a car that belongs to somebody other than the driver as happens in the United Kingdom. If the car belongs to somebody else and the owner has allowed the offender to drive the car, the owner will lose the vehicle. The owner can claim the proceeds of sale of the vehicle once it has been sold after all the costs have been paid. However, if the offender is the owner of the vehicle, he will lose the whole lot. For offenders driving a car the subject of hire purchase or a parent’s car, the vehicle will still be confiscated. That is an important part of this legislation. However, if the true owner of a car provides evidence that he or she owned the vehicle at the time of the offence, the net proceeds of sale would go to the owner of the vehicle.

In the United Kingdom now things are so bad that there are 2 000 recognised organised crime gangs. Its police force has set up a separate section comprising 4 500 police officers to deal with organised crime gangs. I am not saying that the organised crime gang members total 2 000, because they total thousands, but the number of organised crime gangs totals 2 000. At this early stage we must do something about organised crime gangs in Western Australia, because more and more people are coming into this state from overseas and interstate and many of them will be involved in criminal activities. If we do not, the result will be an exponential growth in the number of crime gangs. It would be a disgraceful thing to happen in Western Australia, but this government is
doing nothing. Why is it so afraid to give the CCC the powers to investigate and carry out covert surveillance?

No, it is because the Attorney General has to cover up what is commonly known in the United Kingdom as “cock-ups”.

I have some sympathy for our emergency service drivers whether they are ambulance drivers, firefighters or police officers. As members know, under the Road Traffic Act if they had their “blues and twos” going, as people say in the United Kingdom

Another important issue is the quality of vehicles. Some people drive an old banger. It may be an old V8, and the bodywork is not very good, but it has been souped up to go very fast. Vehicles like that are a danger on the road. The vehicle may be 10 or 15 years old. However, it is not illegal to drive an old banger unless a police officer has issued the driver with a pink slip to take it over the pits, and a defect is found. We should consider adopting the system that applies in the United Kingdom under which a car must be tested regularly when it is more than three, or perhaps five, years old. A car that is less three years old should not have any defects with the brakes, lights, steering and tyres. However, if a

car is five years old, defects may start to come through. The United Kingdom uses what is called a Ministry of Transport test.

I suggest that the Attorney General visit the United Kingdom. He has travelled to the United Kingdom quite a bit and, among other things, looked at some of its prisons. The Attorney General should visit his Labour mates in the UK and seek some guidance about how he should run the justice system in this state. Before I sit and give other members an opportunity to speak, I will refer to a matter that I believe shows that the United Kingdom is learning its lesson.

In the United Kingdom, my country of birth, drive-by shootings occur on a regular basis. Some areas in London, which I used to walk through freely when I was a boy, have been declared no-go areas. These days, people take their lives into their hands when they travel through some parts of London - even with their car doors locked. I do not want that to happen in Western Australia. The Attorney General has a chance to make sure that that does not happen in Western Australia.

I am a native born Englishman who has had the opportunity to serve as a mayor in both the United Kingdom and Western Australia. I have been privileged to witness from local government the common ancestry, language, culture and heritage that these two countries share. As Australians, we should feel justly proud of our heritage as it has produced a system of law, government, and society that is more just and tolerant than any other, despite its faults. When Western Australia was settled, our founding fathers did not find the laws and customs that bind and govern a society lying on the shores of King George Sound or the banks of the Swan River. They brought with them the laws, customs, and hard lessons of history learnt over centuries of civilisation, to build our State of Western Australia. Of course the fount of law and government was then and is still vested in the Crown. The Crown exists to uphold and protect the rights and freedoms of all Western Australians, the very thing our Queen swore to do before Almighty God in her coronation oath.

I am very proud to be a subject of the Queen of Western Australia. Had history given Western Australia a different monarchy I would be a faithful subject of that monarchy. However, because of the unique heritage that we share with the other Australian States and a number of other countries, our Queen is also the monarch of these sovereign States. Monarchs are symbols of unity. They command respect as hereditary succession has placed them above the passions and errors of men scrambling for power. No president of a republic could ever aspire to this, as a president's election or appointment is the product of exploiting partisan differences in the community.

Send her victorious

Happy and glorious

Long to reign over us

God save the Queen

Thank you mater, I'd love another cucumber sandwich

Just curious.

[Kryzaach]

Hahahaha, maybe he should move back there, the grumpy old git....

Edit: Interesting fact, UK/United Kingdom appears 40 times in these excerpts.

[wannabee]

Sorry... But a compacted version for those with only a little time?!

Guessing to do with Hoons and not being punished enough?
Something about young drivers aswell... Just skimmed over very quick...

[The Saint]

Here's an idea, refrain from commenting until you have had a chance to read it properly.

[Scoundrel]

He's a bit of a redneck, yeah. Shoulda seen the writing on the wall a year or so ago when some PSB'ers emails and letters started getting replied to by him, and some of the responses when he was in opposition were quite belligerent.

[The Saint]

I suppose every person has at least one redeeming quality.

We have concerns about the Road Safety Council as it is presently made up.

Quite frankly, it is not successful. Some people have been in their jobs for a long time. Are they really capable of coming up with new initiatives? I do not think they are. I have nothing against Grant Dorrington, but it is time for a change.

I am losing a lot of faith in the Road Safety Council and Grant Dorrington.

I do not have a lot of faith in the Road Safety Council, I must be honest. It has tried to do certain things. Everyone has a best-before date and a sell-by date. That includes Premiers, ministers and members of Parliament. We all have a best-before date or a sell-by date. Grant Dorrington has reached his sell-by date. He has not come up with any new initiatives other than to suggest that the speed limit should be dropped by five or 10 kilometres an hour.

[Jamathi]

Rob Johnson was a small time tea and coffee mechant who made it to Major of a London Burrow (Local council)
Is a very seasoned "Political animal" who will lie straight into your face while looking you in the eye and stab you in the back.
Not an academic person but one who has battled his way up the ladder.
On the other hand, he has got a daughter who needs constant full time care due to a very bad car accident (a very sad case.)
Hence his thoughts regarding irresponsible drivers.
He is seeing the devastation caused by irresponsible driving every day within his own family.

[Graelin]

I spoke with a crim once whos son had just lost the proceeds of his criminality.

He said "Doesnt matter wasnt his stuff in the first place".

So this stuff doenst matter to some.

Just wait til the first politician forgets to insure the car and is forced to watch it be crushed.


Graelin