22 March 2024
By Hannah Wilcox
North Sydney Council is the third largest issuer of parking fines in the Greater Sydney area.
The NSW Government released statistics earlier this month revealing 51,251 ticketless parking fines were handed out in 2023, totalling $8,668,878.
This equates to one ticket being issued every ten minutes.
It followed closely behind Canterbury Bankstown Council, who distributed 57,418 fines with a value of $13,781,113.
Coming in at number one by a landslide was the Council of the City of Sydney, issuing 265,181 tickets to a total of $42,405,468.
It comes as Minister for Finance Courtney Houssos urged 128 councils, including North Sydney, to address the shortcomings in the ticketless approach – with many drivers unaware they have even received a fine.
Houssos requested on the spot, written notification to be left for drivers when a ticket is issued.
“This could be as simple as a note, which could take the form of a standardised, pre-printed card, noting that a fine has been issued,” the Minister wrote.
“This note does not necessarily need to form part of the infringement notice but at a minimum it should inform the driver they will soon receive an infringement notice via post or the Service NSW app.”
She added: “While there are some benefits to the ticketless system, I am aware of community concerns around the issuing of ticketless parking fines, particularly the timeliness of fine notifications.”
“The current implementation of the ticketless parking system has eroded trust in the parking fine system.”
“Providing immediate notification to drivers is the right thing to do and is an important first step to restoring community trust in the administration of the fines system,” the letter said.
The ticketless fine system began as a trial in May 2020 by the former Liberal-National Government and was expanded to more councils in December 2020.