NSW Minister for Roads Natalie Ward mistakenly says drivers are given 10 demerit points

Australian drivers are fed up with revenue collecting governments continuing to fine them for minor speeding and other traffic offences.

And that’s what makes NSW Highways Minister Natalie Ward’s embarrassing on-air failure even worse: when she said drivers had 10 demerit points.

They don’t, it’s 13.

Ms Ward made the fake pair while on 2GB’s Ben Fordham Breakfast Show on Tuesday morning while trying to counter the Labor Opposition’s proposed incentive scheme for well-behaved drivers.

If NSW Labor wins the state elections within two months, drivers will have a demerit point removed from their license every 12 months with good driving behavior, instead of waiting three years.

Ms Ward called the scheme “lazy politics” used to win votes and criticized Labor for putting lives at risk.

However, the minister snapped when Fordham said three years was “a long time” to wait for demerit points to be reinstated, and stumbled in her response trying to remember how many such points can be accumulated before it is revoked. Your license.

‘You got 10 points, I mean, you got, uh, you got 10 points there. That gives you a lot of space, enough warning not to do the wrong thing,” Ms Ward said.

However, the limit is not ten points; a driver with an unrestricted license gets 13 points, professional drivers get 14, the provisional P2 license gets seven, while a provisional P1 and learner license get four.

Fordham took advantage of the stumble and questioned Ms Ward about which NSW drivers have 10 demerit points.

“We start with your 10 available demerit points,” Ms. Ward replied a second time.

The 2 GB host then asked the minister: ‘Isn’t that 13?’

“Yes, you get 13, although that’s different,” said Ms Ward. “If you have no restrictions, you get 13, you get seven provisional points and four provisional points from P1 – varies.”

Fordham again asked the minister to identify which drivers receive 10 demerit points, before Ms Ward admitted her mistake.

‘Sorry, I expressed myself badly. You have 13 points to start with and make sure you are driving within the traffic laws,” Ms Ward said.

Questioned Ms Ward by radio host Ben Fordham (pictured) about how many demerit points a NSW driver can accumulate, asking the minister “isn’t that 13?”

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns proposed the incentive for faster point removal as a way of putting safety, not revenue collection, at the center of road enforcement.

“Under the Labor Party, the rules are simple: drive safely, get a point back.”

Ms Ward criticized the “hackneyed policy” for rewarding dangerous drivers while overlooking the victims and families affected by speed-related deaths on the road.

“This is not about rewarding safe drivers at all… They are just making it easier to get reckless drivers who are breaking the law back on the road and I don’t think that’s a sensible response,” Ms Ward said. .

“This is not about rewarding safe drivers, this is about telling dangerous drivers to just wait 12 months and we’ll give you your point back and we’re not okay with that.

‘We know that losing a life ruins a family. Losing the license does not.

It comes after the NSW Labor Party proposed an incentive scheme for well-behaved drivers, which would remove a demerit point in just 12 months instead of the current three-year waiting period (pictured , NSW Police speaking to driver)

Speeding is the single largest contributor to deaths and injuries on NSW roads, accounting for 41 per cent of road fatalities and 24 per cent of serious injuries each year.

The NSW government recorded 288 road fatalities in 2022, above the state’s 100-year record low of 275 in 2021 when Covid lockdowns reduced traffic, but still well below the pre-pandemic average that it was approaching one death per day.

In a January 2 statement, Transport for NSW Under-Secretary for Safety, Environment and Regulation Tara McCarthy said the government is committed to reducing road tolls to zero by 2050.