Same fine, wildly different pain
A NSW fine for going 10–19 km/h over the limit is a flat $361 — whether you're on a pension or a seven-figure salary.
"While they are basically a mosquito bite for the wealthy, they can be earth-shattering for the poor… Australia's regressive speeding fine system effectively criminalises poverty." — The Australia Institute, Refining Fines (2024)
For someone on $50,000 a year, $361 is more than a third of a week's pay; for someone on $200,000 it's covered "by lunchtime on Monday." Several European countries use income-based "day fines" so the sting is proportionate. Australia doesn't.
Source: The Australia Institute.
The pipeline: fine → licence → job → jail
An unpaid fine doesn't stay a fine. It escalates, administratively, with new costs at each step — and it takes the things people need to earn a living.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Overdue | Enforcement costs added — up to $65 each time an action is taken |
| 2. Sanction | Driver licence and/or vehicle registration suspended — even for non-driving fines (Vic) |
| 3. Recovery | Sheriff seizure of goods, wage/bank garnishee, charge over land |
| 4. (Historically) Prison | Warrant of commitment — imprisonment for fine default |
Losing a licence over an unpaid fine means losing the ability to get to work — especially in regional and remote areas with no public transport — which pushes people into driving while suspended, which is itself a crime. "What starts as a social justice issue," one government submission put it, "often becomes a criminal justice issue."
Sources: Legal Aid NSW; ALRC Report 133, ch.12; Redfern Legal Centre.
Ms Dhu — and who bears the burden
In 2014, Ms Dhu, a 22-year-old Yamatji woman, was locked up in South Hedland, WA, over $3,622 in unpaid fines. She died in custody less than 48 hours later. The Coroner found her treatment "unprofessional and inhumane," and that staff had been influenced by "preconceived ideas about Aboriginal people."
Her death was not an isolated glitch. Between 2006 and 2015, 7,462 people were imprisoned for fine default in WA — roughly 11 a day. The burden fell overwhelmingly on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people:
- 64% of women imprisoned for fine default in WA were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander — the fastest-growing group in the prison system.
- Nationally, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were 33% of all prisoners jailed for traffic/vehicle regulatory offences — and 100% in the Northern Territory.
WA abolished imprisonment for fine default on 20 June 2020, and introduced a Custody Notification Service — reforms that came only after Ms Dhu's death and years of campaigning.
Sources: WA Coroner — Inquest into the death of Ms Dhu; ALRC Report 133. Handled as a matter of public record.
The system admits the harm — quietly
NSW runs a Work and Development Order scheme letting vulnerable people clear fines through treatment, counselling, courses or volunteering instead of money. It has helped more than 87,000 people clear over $200 million in debt. Every hardship scheme like it is a tacit admission that the flat-fine model does real damage to people who can't pay — damage the "road safety" framing never mentions.
The honest ask None of this argues for lawless roads. It argues that if the purpose were safety rather than revenue, the penalty would be proportionate to the risk and to the person — not a flat charge that a millionaire ignores and a single parent goes to court over. A speed camera can't tell the difference between the two. The budget papers can.