Council confirms no return to paper issue
North Sydney Council has the third-highest rate of digitally issued parking fines in Sydney, with no plans to return to hard copy fines.
In 2023, council issued 51,251 digital fines which generated $8.6 million in revenue. This compares to $5.9 million for neighbouring Willoughby and just over $2 million for Mosman – even with the notorious rangers keeping a close eye on parking at the beaches over summer.
The figures have been highlighted by State Finance Minister Courtney Houssos as part of her plea to stop councils using digital parking fines because of ‘community concerns’.
The digital system was implemented as a trial by the previous Liberal State Government in 2020, with 48 out of 128 councils using them in NSW. The minister has now banned any more councils from taking up the digital scheme until Revenue NSW conducts further consultation.
In a letter to all councils sent in March, Ms Houssos said that while there were benefits to the digital system, she was aware of community concerns about ticketless parking fines, ‘particularly the timeliness of fine notifications’. Under the digital scheme, the fine is not placed on a vehicle, but a letter is issued by Revenue NSW, usually within three days of the offence. This is often the first time a person knows they have been fined. Minister Houssos said concerns included the difficulty in gathering evidence if the driver wanted to seek a review, and the reduced impact of a fine as an immediate deterrent.
A North Sydney Council spokesperson told North Shore Living that digital fines, introduced in 2021, ‘had significantly reduced the level of confrontation and aggression our parking officers experience in their work’.
Fines which generated the most revenue in North Sydney were for parking longer than permitted, failure to pay at meter and disobeying no stopping signs, the spokesperson said.
Minister Houssos has asked councils who use the digital system to leave some evidence of the fine, such as a pre-printed card, on the car windscreen to ‘provide immediate, written notification to drivers of the fine’.
The council spokesperson said North Sydney had ‘no intention’ to voluntarily move back to the paper system and would not be leaving any written notification either: “Council will continue to conduct its enforcement work electronically in order to continue to reduce levels of confrontation and aggression experienced by parking officers.”