SA Plans Ban on Mailed Parking Fines After 31,373 Camera Car Expiations

• South Australia plans to ban councils from mailing parking fines after a camera car passes, and to make a ticket left on the car or handed to the driver compulsory.
• The City of Adelaide camera car issued 31,373 parking expiations worth $4.25 million in 2024/25, and the council withdrew 563 of the 2,199 it was asked to review.
• Until the change takes effect, a posted notice still counts, so check the pay by date and choose between paying and asking for a review before it passes.

Could the Camera Car Parking Fine in Your Letterbox Disappear?

The South Australian Government announced on 8 November 2026 that it plans to take away councils’ right to mail a parking fine after a camera car has driven past a parked vehicle. A physical ticket would have to go on the vehicle or into the driver’s hands, and the government says it will make that compulsory. Until the change takes effect, a fine already in your letterbox is a live expiation with a pay by date.

The Premier, Peter Malinauskas, named the City of Adelaide’s Park Safe program as his example: a car with roof cameras that photographs vehicles it flags as illegally parked. The council says trained staff review the images, and an expiation they approve is posted to the registered owner.

Mr Malinauskas said: “If a council wants to fine someone for a parking offence, it should give them a ticket at the time.” He added: “When motorists receive a fine in the mail weeks later issued through AI-assisted technology, the opportunity to understand why they’ve been fined and gather evidence if they want to challenge it is lost.”

The technology can stay. The Premier says AI can still be used, but the ticket has to come from an inspector at the scene. “If they’ve got someone in the car and someone gets out of the car, looks at the circumstances … that’s OK,” he said. “It’s the practice of the car and the AI machine only forming the judgement that we are regulating out.” He describes the South Australian reform as modelled on changes already made in New South Wales.

What the Park Safe Car Has Issued, and What It Has Cost Drivers

The City of Adelaide began using vehicle-based parking monitoring in 2021. A report to the council’s 7 October 2025 committee meeting shows the growth. Park Safe issued 2,508 expiations in 2022/23, worth $402,000, which was 2 percent of the council’s total. In 2023/24 it issued 7,874, worth $1.28 million, or 6 percent. In 2024/25 it issued 31,373, worth $4.25 million, or 21 percent. That is almost four times the previous year’s count.

Divide $4.25 million by 31,373 and the average Park Safe expiation is about $135, or $18.57 more than a 50 litre tank of petrol at the 233.8 cents a litre the ACCC recorded across five capitals, Adelaide included, on 28 October. That average runs higher than for foot patrols, as the zones the car watches carry bigger penalties, which the State Government sets.

The council report puts the 2024/25 surge down largely to using the car after business hours and in residential permit zones, after resident complaints. A Parking and Information Officer reviews the photos back at the office. Paid parking bays and then unpaid time-limited zones come next, and the 2025/26 budget funds a second car.

Park Safe fines made up about a third of council parking expiation revenue ($4.25 million of $12.7 million is 33.5 percent), and a February 2026 council agenda put the 2025/26 shortfall from suspending the car at $1.6 million. A City of Adelaide spokesperson described the system this way: “Since 2021, the City of Adelaide has used vehicle-based technology to support its team of parking and information officers in monitoring Australia Road Rules compliance,” and “The Park Safe vehicle and technology gathers information which is reviewed by trained staff who determine whether an expiation should be issued.”

In 2024/25 the council received 2,199 review requests on Park Safe expiations, 7 percent of the 31,373 issued, and withdrew 563. That is 1.8 percent of all Park Safe expiations and 25.6 percent of the requests. For expiations written by officers on foot, 4.6 percent were reviewed (5,473) and 2.6 percent were withdrawn (3,072), which is 56.1 percent of the requests. The council report reads: “The higher ratio of reviews for expiations issued via Park Safe is not unexpected given expiations are received in the mail (not posted on the vehicle at the time of the offence) and the relatively higher value of expiations issued,” and “The data shows the ratio of expiations issued via Park Safe that are withdrawn is lower than traditional approaches, demonstrating the accuracy of the technology and the strong evidence available when an alert is progressed to an expiation by a PIO [Parking and Information Officer].”

What Drivers, Councillors and Councils Are Saying

Dallas Coull runs tour buses and spoke at the government’s press conference. He never had a fine before Park Safe began, then collected “dozens and dozens”. “There’s actually a hotel in the CBD that don’t pick up [at] anymore because we get kept getting fines,” he said.

Rundle Mall shopper Fiona Garwood said she would “rather have things done by a person”. Levi Adams, 23, agreed. “I’m concerned about AI in every aspect of life, so I really don’t need it to be in parking fines as well. The less, the better, in my opinion,” he said.

Adelaide driver Kate Treloar was fined in a permit zone while making a U-turn. “When we looked at the photo more closely, it was quite obvious what we were doing,” she said. “While there was a permit zone sign behind us, we were not parked. We were quite a bit out from the kerb, and our car was on, the lights were on and the indicator was on.” She added: “What we were in fact waiting for before we could U-turn turned out to be the camera car from council.” She contested the notice and it was withdrawn, but called the review process “tedious and frustrating”. “I absolutely think that the entire system needs to be reviewed, it’s extremely dubious,” she said.

City of Adelaide councillor Keiran Snape said in February that the fines take two to three weeks to arrive. “So it becomes really hard to actually challenge that, to have to go back and remember what the circumstances were that led you to that situation,” he said. He said the system “removed a large part of human element”. “And because this car can’t necessarily tell the difference between someone who’s parked and someone who’s just moved off to the side, this person got pinged and then had to go through the stresses of trying to repeal that,” he said. “The person was successful in that challenge, but I would argue that they shouldn’t have had to go through that process in the first place and a lot of people have not been successful and challenging.”

Cr Snape is not “strictly against” the technology and says people caught doing the wrong thing should pay. “I’m not against the system, and I think it’s a useful system but there has to be an element of fairness and right now that just doesn’t exist in my opinion,” he said. “I’m seeing all these complaints come through and we’re just not having that human element, that grace, so to speak.” He finished with: “So a bit of leeway, a bit of fairness, a bit of humanity would go a long way.”

The president of the Local Government Association of SA, Mitcham mayor Heather Holmes-Ross, called it “unusual” that the government had not consulted the association, and asked whether the ban would reach other ticketless systems. “The technology we’re talking about is the same technology that’s used by red light cameras, phone detection — it’s all the same software — so we’re a little confused about why it would be that just parking data is being attacked here and not all data that’s collected by AI,” she said.

A state government spokesperson answered that rules for parking and rules for road safety carry an “important distinction”. “Parking fines are mostly issued to stationary cars whereas that is clearly not the case for a speeding car,” the spokesperson said. The government will consult stakeholders, the association included.

Ms Holmes-Ross said several councils are trialling the technology with human oversight. “If you drive past 10 or 20 cars, then that video can be viewed, and those fines can be mailed out,” she said. “If you’re stopping and you’re giving out those 20 individually, it just takes more time.” She added: “So if there’s a way of doing it accurately and more efficiently, it’s better for everyone.”

What New South Wales Did First

New South Wales introduced ticketless parking fines in 2020, and hundreds of thousands of fines reached drivers as long as two weeks after a parking officer booked them. Its reforms began on 1 July 2025. Councils and other agencies must now put a fine or notification on the vehicle, except in limited circumstances such as where it is unsafe for the officer. They send images of the offence to Revenue NSW and give them to the driver on request. With no notification on the vehicle, the fine must follow within seven days. A Revenue NSW taskforce invalidates fines that break the rules.

In the first half of 2024 (1 January to 30 June), NSW councils issued 435,363 ticketless fines. In the same stretch of 2025 (1 January to 20 June) they issued 371,565, a drop of around 15 percent by the government’s count. The second window is 171 days against 182 for the first, so per day the fall is smaller: 2,392 fines a day against 2,173, or 9.2 percent.

NSW Minister for Finance Courtney Houssos said on 1 July 2025: “Today marks the end of the previous government’s unfair ticketless parking fine system.” “People shouldn’t be caught by a surprise parking ticket weeks later. Our commonsense changes bring fairness and transparency back to the system.” “Motorists will once again benefit from on-the-spot notifications. New requirements that motorists are provided with photos of the offence will assist them if they wish to object to a fine.” “Our new data requirements will ensure we can keep a close eye on the progress of these reforms.” “I want to thank councils for their work over the last few months to take action on this legislation. I know for many of them it required a significant uplift in their processes to meet the new standards.”

NRMA spokesperson Peter Khoury said: “The NRMA welcomes the end to ticketless parking fines in NSW and commends the NSW Government for listening to motorists and making this commonsense reform.” “Transparency matters. People deserve to know when and why they’re being fined—and to have a fair chance to challenge it if needed.” “The Government has worked through the issues, consulted widely, and come to an appropriate solution. Today is a great day for NSW motorists.”

Each state sets its own fine rules, so the NSW regime says nothing about the detail South Australia has still to consult on. Victoria sets its own amounts: Victoria’s Melbourne Cup operation detected 746 unregistered vehicles, and driving an unregistered two-axle vehicle there draws a $1,046 infringement.

What to Do With a Posted Parking Fine

Until the change takes effect, a fine in the mail is a valid expiation. These are the City of Adelaide’s published steps, so check the issuing council’s website for any other council.

Read the notice for the issue date and the pay by date, which is 28 days later at the City of Adelaide. Pay first and the matter is closed: the council treats a paid expiation as finalised and will not review it.

Look at the evidence before you write. The council usually photographs the car when it issues an expiation, and its Review my parking expiation page shows the details and the photos. Reviews are in writing and get one decision each, and the council says they take a minimum of four to six weeks on average. The expiation is on hold and no further fees apply while it runs.

Match your reason to the grounds. The council reviews a stolen vehicle (with a police report number) and cases where you can prove a valid ticket or permit, a medical emergency needing a hospital or ambulance, a breakdown or a ticket machine fault. Without evidence a withdrawal is unlikely. Section 4(2) of the Expiation of Offences Act 1996 (SA) also lets a council drop an offence it judges trifling: a compelling humanitarian or safety reason, usually a medical emergency; an offence the driver could not reasonably avoid, usually a breakdown; or technical, trivial or petty conduct.

The council says it will turn down reviews that rest on not knowing the road rule or on not reading the parking sign or finding it confusing. Its own report lists unawareness of the restriction and not seeing the line markings among the most common themes in Park Safe review requests.

Do not let the date pass. Miss the pay by date without paying or taking some action and the council sends a Reminder Notice with a $77.00 fee plus a search fee, and gives a further 14 days. A Notice of Intended Enforcement follows, with 10 days. After that the expiation can go to FERU, South Australia’s Fines Enforcement and Recovery Unit, with extra fees, a possible licence suspension and a block on registering your vehicle. Someone who was not the owner or driver has 21 days from the issue date to lodge a nomination form.

If the review fails and you still dispute the fine, you can elect to be prosecuted and have the Magistrates Court hear it. The council warns that the bill can exceed the original expiation, as it seeks to recover its own costs, and a loss could lead to a criminal conviction and further fees.

Before the pay by date, view the council’s photos, gather your evidence and decide between paying and a written review that makes the full case in one go.

Want more car content? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for the best automotive news and analysis on the internet.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to follow us on Microsoft Start.

Reviewed by Preetam Gadekar