{"id":90051,"date":"2026-09-07T09:17:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T09:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/90051\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T09:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T09:17:14","slug":"thousands-of-camera-detected-seatbelt-fines-in-doubt-after-access-canberra-fails-to-update-legal-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/90051\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of camera-detected seatbelt fines in doubt after Access Canberra fails to update legal documents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of fines handed out to drivers in Canberra caught on camera not wearing seatbelts have been thrown into doubt following an “administrative oversight”.<\/p>\n

Access Canberra discovered fixed and mobile cameras were certified to detect mobile phones, but a legal document was never updated to explicitly include seatbelt offences.<\/p>\n

The error has cast doubt over around 13,000 seatbelt fines that have been issued since the ACT started using mobile traffic detection cameras to detect seatbelt offences in November 2025.<\/p>\n

Head of Access Canberra Josh Rynehart said the oversight was picked up internally two weeks ago, but should have been addressed before fines began to be issued.<\/p>\n

“The cameras are authorised for the use as a traffic offence control device,” he told ABC Radio Canberra.<\/p>\n

“It’s just that the disallowable instrument didn’t include the word ‘seatbelt’.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Those who have already paid their fines will not be able to review them retrospectively, Access Canbera said. (ABC News: David Sciasci)<\/p>\n

Around 6,500 have already paid their fines or had their liability otherwise resolved, instances which Access Canberra considers “settled”, despite the bungle.<\/p>\n

“We consider once a person has paid their infringement, that that matter is settled and the demerits then do apply to their license,” Mr Rynehart said.<\/p>\n

“The question is about whether the evidence would be admissible in court, not whether the evidence is correct.”<\/p>\n

He described it as a “potential” issue and that a fix was needed out of an “abundance of caution just to make sure we have absolute clarity”.<\/p>\n

“As soon as we became aware of the potential issue, we needed to act and do something about it,” he said.<\/p>\n

Problem rectified, authority says<\/p>\n

As soon as the issue was discovered, Access Canberra paused the issuing of seatbelt fines.<\/p>\n

Mr Rynehart said the issue had now been fixed, and infringements are being issued again.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Some drivers have successfully challenged their fines, Access Canberra’s Josh Rynehart said.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

“To be clear, the disallowable instrument is now explicitly authorising the cameras, and we will be issuing the infringements moving forward,” he said.<\/p>\n

“At its core, people need to wear a seatbelt.”<\/p>\n

He said there were options available for people who had not paid their fines.<\/p>\n

“They can choose to pay the fine, they can choose to seek a withdrawal, they can choose to dispute,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Rynehart said 20 seatbelt offences had been challenged in court, and all had been upheld.<\/p>\n

‘Unfortunate administrative error’<\/p>\n

The Legislative Assembly will now consider legislation to retrospectively fix the issue, and to ensure the fines issued are valid.<\/p>\n

Deputy Chief Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith described it as an “unfortunate administrative error” but said “wearing a seatbelt is a critical safety measure”.<\/p>\n

“Every single infringement notice that has been issued, has not only had the camera footage but has also been checked by a human being,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We are talking about thousands of people who were identified as not wearing a seatbelt or wearing it incorrectly.”\"A<\/p>\n

Mark Parton says the Canberra Liberals are “examining all options”.\u00a0 (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)<\/p>\n

But Opposition Leader Mark Parton said a complete review of the seatbelt camera system might be warranted.<\/p>\n

“It puts the government in an extremely embarrassing and precarious situation,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The Canberra Liberals are just examining all options and those options do include refunds.<\/p>\n

“There is certainly a community expectation here that the government has monumentally stuffed up.”<\/p>\n

He said the Canberra Liberals were currently “not of a mind” to support legislation to retrospectively allow the fines to become legal.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Greens MLA Andrew Braddock said his party was “willing to work with the Government to pass a validating bill to remove legal doubt over seatbelt infringements issued under this instrument”.<\/p>\n

“The failure of the ACT government to update a legal instrument should not be an excuse to be unsafe on our roads,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of fines handed out to drivers in Canberra caught on camera not wearing seatbelts have been thrown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4817,85973,22,21,54293,2184,154497,11871,9139,154496,3033,5116,27352,48812,40829,15849,2223],"class_list":["post-90051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-act","tag-administrative","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-camera","tag-canberra","tag-enforceable","tag-fines","tag-infringement","tag-invalid","tag-legal","tag-local-stories","tag-offences","tag-oversight","tag-risk","tag-seatbelt","tag-traffic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}