Local councils in New South Wales have doubled down on the controversial ticketless parking system, issuing the fines at a record rate in the last financial year.
NSW government statistics show a 49 percent jump in ticketless parking fines issued in the 2023/24 financial year.
The ticketless parking system has proved to be a financial boon for some councils with revenue increasing 14 percent in the same time period and the number of tickets issued up by 9 percent.
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The ticketless scheme was introduced in 2020 by the former state government and allows councils to send parking fines in the mail instead of attaching tickets to windscreens.
But the move has sparked a backlash as it can take weeks for drivers to receive a fine in the mail, meaning they are less able to gather evidence to contest the fine and increasing the chance of multiple fines piling up.
The number of ticketless parking fines issued overtook traditional on-the-spot fines for the first time in 2023/2024 financial year.
There were 822,310 ticketless parking fines handed out by local councils in the last financial year, compared to 551,441 in the twelve months prior.
Responding to driver concerns, NSW Finance Minister Courtney Houssos asked councils to revert back to paper parking fines in March, saying the ticketless system “failed to meet community expectations”.
Houssos said since then 30 councils have indicated to Revenue NSW or stated publicly they had either already, or planned to, go back to issuing on-the-spot fines.
However, some councils had stated they were unwilling to make changes unless they were forced to by new legislation, Houssos said.
Houssos warned the government would be taking further steps to make sure the system was made fairer.
“If councils aren’t willing to provide a common-sense fix, the NSW Government will step in and use our policy levers to ensure the ticketless parking fine system meets community expectations,” Houssos said.
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According to NSW Revenue figures, the City of Sydney was by far the council issuing the most ticketless parking fines.
The City of Sydney handed out 265,181 ticketless parking fines to the value of $42.4 million in 2023.
Canterbury-Bankstown Council collected $13.7 million in revenue from 57,418 fines followed by North Sydney Council which pocketed $8.6 million from 51,251 infringements.
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