Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make a few brief comments on these two particular reports: National road safety—Eyes on the road ahead and Train illumination: inquiry into some measures proposed to improve train visibility and reduce level crossing accidents. Firstly, I want to deal with Train illumination. This report was presented to the House in June 2004. The government’s response was tabled in the House in December the following year. I will not go into all the detail, but I want to briefly say that the committee reported with only five recommendations but they were good ones. The government supported one recommendation in full, one recommendation in part and one recommendation in principle and did not support two of the recommendations.

The report focuses on a very narrow aspect—as you would expect with only five recommendations—of community safety at level crossings. It is very specific and something that I am sure is a concern to all members. I am pleased the government supported at least some recommendations, particularly the adoption of a scoring system which is similar to that which is in place in Queensland. This will provide uniformity across the country. I am also pleased that the government will undertake further studies to ensure maximum safety for the public at level crossings to make sure that is achieved.

I want to highlight, for the benefit of the House, members and the public, that fatalities at level crossings are a serious matter. While they have decreased over recent years, which indicates that there has been an improvement in safety standards and illumination and a whole range of other issues about visibility, there are still too many people who die at our rail crossings each year and there is always more that we can do. I do not think any of us lives in a perfect world, a perfect system, where we expect there to be no fatalities, but I strongly believe that governments should continue to work harder together—particularly in areas where the federal and state governments can work together to bring about uniform signage and uniform policies and procedures across what are national issues. I just wanted to make those comments in relation to the Train illumination report.

I want to also make some brief comments on the national road safety report called Eyes on the road ahead. This report was also presented to the House in June 2004, and the government’s response was tabled in the House in December the following year. The committee reported with 38 recommendations. The government supported only three of those in full. It supported 13 recommendations in principle and noted one, but it did not support 21 of those recommendations. Obviously there is an extensive number of recommendations because of the scope of the work of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport and Regional Services and the importance of national road safety. Just as important as safety at rail crossings is national road safety.

This is a national issue and one where the federal government could do more work on better partnering with the states, not saying, as is the case in the government’s response that was tabled in December 2005, that many of these issues were out of the scope of the federal government. In fact, the principal reason the government did not support the recommendations of the committee is that the federal government believed that many of the recommendations were overreaching the federal government’s responsibilities. That may be the case, but where that is the case there is scope for the government and the minister to pay particular attention to working with the state authorities and using good recommendations, not just rejecting them out of hand.

Such safety recommendations may be out of the scope of the federal government, but it should work with the states in trying to put them in place. It seems obvious to me, as I am sure it would to ordinary people out on the street, that if you have a good recommendation, a good policy—something that could be done to save lives—you will do everything you can to enact it, if you have the power to do so. To simply say, ‘Well, it’s not my responsibility; I’ll just let somebody else worry about it,’ I do not think is a good enough response.

I also want to mention that I think, while some were very good, some of the committee’s recommendations were not so very good. Committees, in themselves, are not infallible. They do make recommendations that I do not always agree with. I want to note one in particular. The committee recommended some absurd special licensing category for four-wheel drive owners. While this debate rears its ugly head from time to time, I think it is just as silly as anything could possibly be. The government rejected it—and I am glad that it did. I am sure that this debate will pop up again and I will not go into the detail of why I believe this is a silly approach to licensing or safety. If we really want to look at road safety, before moving on to any sort of licensing there are many things that the federal and state governments could do simply about the condition of our roads, to start with. Very rarely with somebody’s death is it a case of just a licence issue. It is usually a combination of two, three or four things, not the least being poor road conditions. Often it is people speeding or being under the influence of some drug. Just with those few comments, I note both of those reports.

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