(Me at The Twelve Apostles)
Before indulging in my critical nature, I would like to first deposit a caveat – that Australia is a great place to live in and Melbourne is definitely on my list of retirement homes for future consideration. The weather was amicable (at least at the time we were there), the country side is breathtakingly beautiful; Melbourne was vibrant (true only before 5pm), clean and the people are friendly (mostly). While it is not perfect – the most vivid examples being the utterly redundant hook turns in the CBD, the ridiculously expensive elevated highway and the obsessive compulsive customs control – but other than these, it is really difficult to not like Melbourne.
However, despite taking extra measures to ensure that I do not export my Malaysian driving standard along with me, I got a parking ticket and had the car towed away for obstructing traffic on the 3rd day in Melbourne. (This is a slightly better record than getting 2 speeding tickets on the same road on the 1st day I got my car in the UK)
Now, I’m not an unreasonable person, I think, and I fully accepted the responsibility for committing the offence as it was my negligence for thinking that parking restriction signs of tow away times are identical for both sides of the road. All in all, the $320 impound plus $119 fine burnt a gaping hole in our budget, but by the evening itself, I have reached the 5th stage of the grieving process and is coming into acceptance of the tragedy.
My acceptance was short lived as it quickly turned into anger after watching 2 consecutive semi documentary TV programmes on channel 7 – ‘Border Patrol’ and ‘The Force’. In the former, an Australian returning from overseas was caught smuggling cocaine at the airport, (enough coke to get him hanged many times over in Malaysia) yet he got off with a just a fine without jail time! (Can’t remember exactly how much, but in the region of $5k - $7k) In the latter, a reckless driver was flagged down by a police patrol car and he refused to stop over and the situation became a car chase, eventually being cornered by the police and arrested. Again, there was no jail time, he did get his license revoked for a year and was fined $800.
The disproportionality of my civil wrong penalty juxtaposed with the 2 criminal offences on TV is too gross to ignore. Presuming the impound for the guy who tried to avoid police capture was also $320, plus the $800 fine and that’s a 'grand total' of $1,120 only for committing multiple offences, both civil and criminal for reckless driving, speeding, breaking traffic lights and avoiding police arrest!
Now compare that to my $439 fine plus impound for parking during tow away time, the gross disproportionality of the two penalties are just beyond me, someone please send me back to law school, my logic cannot process the meaning of justice as understood by the Australians!
There is something gloriously wrong with the criminal justice system in Australia. I suppose decriminalising criminal wrongs and criminalising civil wrongs is what you get when criminals legislate.
LBF
October 2010
