This figure is roughly equivalent to the entire year’s revenue for parking fines in the 2022/23 financial year.

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According to Council’s Manager of Development and Environment, Daniel Walsh, this is due to Council employing an extra two rangers, allowing more complaints to be investigated and more fines to be issued.

Council uses a ticketless system where motorists are informed only after the fine has been sent directly from the Department of Revenue NSW.

In March of this year, NOTA reported that Finance Minister Courtney Houssos, responding to complaints from the public, wrote to NSW councils using the ticketless-fines system to request that they change their practice and leave a paper ticket when fines were issued.

In her letter to councils, Minister Houssos asked for the process of issuing fines to be reviewed and for councils to issue something “as simple as a note, which could take the form of a standardised, pre-printed card, noting that a fine has been issued”.

“Doing so will provide drivers immediate notification that they have been given a parking fine and will allow them to take their own photos and note down relevant details,” the Minister said.

The ticketless-fine system means that some motorists are fined repeatedly in the same place without being made aware that an infringement has occurred.

Nambucca Valley Council is one of a swathe of councils continuing to use the system in defiance of the Minister’s request.

“We continue to use ‘ticketless parking’ for a range of reasons,” said Daniel Walsh in justifying the Council’s decision.

“One of the main ones is staff safety,” he told NOTA.

“There have been cases where someone issued a fine decided to chase up the matter with the issuing officer before the fine got sent to Revenue NSW,” he explained.

Mr Walsh said all of the Nambucca Valley’s issuing officers collect photographic evidence which is available to motorists who dispute their fines.

Getting a parking fine certainly leaves a bad taste and can have the effect of increasing frustration within the community particularly if motorists feel the fines are unfairly expensive.

Such revenue raising tactics come at a time when councils are facing the burden of balancing budgets amid substantially increased costs in providing the services they have offered in the past.

According to Council reports, most of the fines issued in May in the Nambucca Valley were issued in just a few streets (Fletcher, Bowra and Ridge St) of Nambucca Heads.

Approximately 25 percent were issued in Macksville streets (Princess, Wallace, Winifred and Ferry), one from Valla Beach and two from Bowraville.

Daniel Walsh said this was probably the result of rangers responding to complaints of illegal parking from the community.

Most fines issued were $92 for parking longer than permitted or parking incorrectly.

Several motorists received $644 fines for not displaying a ‘disabled parking permit’ in disabled parking areas.

Two $302 fines were issued for parking in the reverse direction in parallel parks.

At a meeting earlier this year, Councillor James Angel reported to Council that he had received correspondence from a frustrated resident who had received one such large fine despite claiming exceptional circumstances for the incorrect parking.

“I don’t get why one fine should be three times the value of others,” Cr Angel told NOTA.

“If you are parked incorrectly, it should be a set value,” he said.

By Ned COWIE