Every fine type in Australia, camera, parking, speeding, toll, comes with the same basic right: a free review before you pay. What we wanted to know is how often that review actually works, and whether that varies by state. It does, a lot. Brisbane upheld just 2.8% of parking appeals this year. Western Australia withdrew around 60% of the AI camera fines drivers actually challenged. Victoria's own auditor says it can't even verify its own numbers. Here's the current picture, state by state.
Check your fine in minutes →Free case-strength check first. If your grounds are weak, we'll tell you · one flat price, $10 parking & toll, $15 everything elseAI camera fines get most of the headlines right now, and for good reason: they're the fastest-growing category and the most controversial. But a review is a review, whether the fine came from a camera, a parking officer, a council contractor or a toll operator. Every fine type shares the same core deal: it's free to ask for a second look, and asking doesn't make the fine worse. So we looked at what each state and territory actually discloses about outcomes.
Brisbane City Council issued nearly 249,000 parking fines in the 2025 to 2026 financial year, worth more than $45 million, and by its own figures only around 7,000 appeals succeeded: roughly 2.8%. Council runs a three-stage dispute process (a local review, a Disputes Commissioner review, then the Magistrates Court), and reviewers generally want clear evidence of an error, not just a confusing sign. On the camera side, Queensland issued roughly 114,000 AI image-recognition fines in 2024, the most recent published figure, and a Queensland magistrate threw out an AI-issued seatbelt fine in early 2026 after finding the driver couldn't be shown to have knowingly allowed the offence. But there's no published state-wide figure for how many camera fines are withdrawn on review each year, so the parking number is the clearest read we have for Queensland.
WA's AI camera rollout, live since October 2025, has been controversial enough that the numbers keep making news. In the cameras' first seven months, WA's Department of Transport and Main Roads withdrew 6,114 infringements covering 3,413 drivers, out of roughly 184,000 infringements issued since launch. When reporters separately asked how many people who actually requested a review of an AI seatbelt fine had it withdrawn, the answer was around 60%, wiping more than $1 million in fines. The state's Road Safety Commission has since opened a formal review of the program. WA is the only state with a clear, current success rate for people who actually contest a fine.
The ACT tells a different story. In a five-week seatbelt-camera enforcement blitz across Canberra (3 November to 9 December 2025), five cameras issued 3,601 infringements worth $3.19 million in penalties. Of those, only 26 were withdrawn on internal review, under 1%, while 180 drivers escalated to the ACT Magistrates Court rather than accept the review outcome. Compared with WA, that's a far tougher internal review bar, and a court list doing more of the work a review process might otherwise handle.
NSW is Australia's biggest fine state by scale. In 2024, nationally, more than 3.3 million speeding fines were issued, 83.6% of them by camera, along with 330,926 mobile-phone fines and 183,315 seatbelt fines, both around 87% camera-issued, and NSW accounts for a large share of that volume. On accuracy specifically, NSW's own 2025 figures show a false-positive rate of 3.74% for phone-detection cameras and 15.28% for seatbelt cameras at the human-review stage, more than one in seven seatbelt flags was wrong before a fine was even issued. What Revenue NSW doesn't publish is a "fines withdrawn on review" outcome figure, for cameras or otherwise, so the scale is public but the results of a challenge aren't.
Victoria is the most striking case, and not because of what's published. It's because of what the state's own watchdog says can be trusted. In June 2026, the Victorian Auditor-General's Office reviewed the Distracted Driver and Seatbelt Detection camera program, covering 308 camera sites, 160,754 camera hours and 188,493 infringements between July 2023 and September 2025. Its finding: the responsible department "does not know if the program is reducing road accidents, serious injuries and deaths," record-keeping on camera placement is poor, and the program leans on self-reported, unverified data from its camera vendor. If Victoria can't confidently say how well its own camera program works, it's a safe bet the state can't tell you how many wrongly issued fines get corrected either.
SA Police reviews more than 23,000 expiation notices a year on request, across all offence types, not just camera-detected ones, which is one of the only genuinely fine-type-agnostic figures we found. It isn't broken down further, so it can't tell you a success rate. For Tasmania and the Northern Territory, we could not locate published, disaggregated figures on fine reviews or withdrawals of any kind. Both operate camera enforcement and both offer a review process, but neither appears to publish outcome statistics the way WA, the ACT or Brisbane do.
Two things stand out. First, wherever a real number exists, whatever the fine type, a meaningful share of challenges succeed: WA's roughly 60% is the standout, but even Brisbane's 2.8% means thousands of parking fines were still overturned. Second, whether you'll ever see that number depends entirely on where you got the fine and what it was for. WA is transparent about camera outcomes, Brisbane about parking outcomes, the ACT about both volume and the court pipeline. NSW and Queensland publish scale but not outcomes. Victoria's own auditor won't vouch for its data. SA, Tasmania and the NT publish little to nothing.
There's also a reason the headline numbers are so low in places. Brisbane's own guidance is blunt: simply finding a parking sign confusing "is usually not enough" to have a fine overturned, drivers need clear evidence that a mistake or error actually occurred. Most rejected appeals are likely a line or two of complaint with nothing behind it, and that drags the bulk success rate down. WA's roughly 60% figure, by contrast, covers people who requested a review with an actual case to put, not everyone who was ever fined. That gap is the real argument for a properly evidenced, clearly targeted letter over a quick email of complaint: a reviewer isn't looking for sympathy, they're looking for a specific, evidenced reason the fine is wrong. The stronger the letter, the better the odds of landing in the minority that succeeds rather than the majority that doesn't.
None of this is a guarantee for any individual case: every fine is decided on its own facts, by the issuing authority, and plenty of fines are entirely valid. But the pattern holds across fine types and states: asking costs nothing, and it's the strength of the case, not just the act of asking, that decides the outcome.
The path is broadly the same for every fine type: check the evidence (the camera image, the signage, the parking ticket details), gather anything that supports your account, and request a free internal review within the window on your notice, commonly 28 days. See our guides on disputing a parking fine, a speeding fine, or why AI cameras get it wrong in your state.
A printable one-pager: deadlines, the grounds to tick, evidence to gather, who reviews your fine in each state, and what to put in your letter. Pop in your email and it's yours.
It depends enormously on the fine type and the state. Brisbane City Council upheld only about 2.8% of parking-fine appeals in the 2025 to 2026 financial year. By contrast, around 60% of Western Australian drivers who requested a review of an AI seatbelt-camera fine had it withdrawn. There is no single national figure, and most authorities don't publish one at all.
On the limited public data available, yes, at least in Brisbane, where only around 1 in 36 parking appeals succeeded in 2025 to 2026. Camera-detected traffic fines in WA showed a much higher success rate among drivers who actually requested a review. But this varies by council and state, and most places don't publish a comparable figure for either.
No. Requesting a free internal review with the issuing authority does not increase your fine in any Australian state. If the review is declined, you simply owe the original amount.
One flat price per letter: $10 for parking and unpaid-toll fines, $15 for all other fine types. No percentage of your fine. There is a free case-strength check before you pay, so if your grounds are weak we tell you first.
Fight My Fine is a self-help tool, not a law firm, and this article is general information, not legal advice. Figures above are drawn from the government sources and news reporting listed and reflect the periods stated; they are historical data, not a prediction of any individual outcome. Outcomes depend on your circumstances and the issuing authority's decision. For serious matters or court, speak with a qualified lawyer or a free legal service.