Mr ANDREW: My question is to the Minister for Transport and Main Roads and Minister for Digital Services. 

With reference to Queensland’s state-of-the-art AI driven traffic system slugging thousands of Queenslanders twice for the same offence, how did this fault manage to go undetected for two years and how can Queenslanders trust there are not countless other undetected glitches in the department’s multibillion dollar digitisation program flying under the radar? 

 Mr BAILEY: This was a new program and it was a design fault within the department. As soon as
I was made aware of it, I was briefed fully by the department and put the information out to the
community as quickly as possible. 

It was a design fault at a departmental level. It has been rectified immediately so it is not something that is ongoing.

Let me say to the member for Mirani that we need to make sure that we have safe roads. 

Camera detected offences for seatbelts not being worn and people being distracted by their phones are an absolutely essential part of making sure that people respect other people on the roads. 

I also know—and this is documented—that the number of people who are not complying with wearing seatbelts is higher in regional and rural areas. 

We have to get the message out to people that a seatbelt will save their life and the life of their passenger when they go off the road.

While this has been a regrettable situation, these cameras are an essential part of stopping crashes, stopping road trauma, stopping people suffering lifelong injuries and stopping fatalities. 

I outlined this very clearly in a press conference at eight o’clock on Friday morning. 

I went through this extensively. 

I also reported on it in my ministerial statement. 

 I say to the member that we all have a responsibility to make sure that the message on road safety gets out. 

This was an unfortunate situation. It was picked up in trend analysis within the department. 

This is a new program. It is something that was picked up in the trend analysis. 

Given the fault was within the design, initial testing did not pick it up, but it was picked up in the trend analysis. 

It was picked up by the departmental processes. That is a simple explanation of it. It has been rectified and we are working through the issue now.