Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure you do. The AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008 currently before us demonstrates, without doubt, the Rudd Labor government’s commitment to improving road safety as well as the quality of our local roads and local road infrastructure. Road safety and the adequacy of local road infrastructure to meet residential and transport needs are two issues which are never far from the minds of Australian motorists or from the minds of the people in my electorate of Calwell, which covers much of Melbourne’s outer metropolitan north-west region. Road upgrades and improvements to local road safety continue to feature as strong electorate concerns.

Calwell is home to some of Melbourne’s strongest growth corridors, where there has literally been an explosion in new housing developments. Some of those high-growth corridors include Craigieburn, in my electorate, and Mount Ridley, which is experiencing a significant and phenomenal growth rate. This population growth means that there are more motorists on our local roads and more pressures in terms of road use, convenience and minimising traffic congestion. Unlike the inner suburbs of Melbourne, where public transport is more likely to be an option for those not wishing to drive, in Calwell everyday activities such as dropping the kids off at school, going to the shops and getting to work nearly always require the use of a car, making these pressures on the roads in my electorate all the more acute.

We also have regional areas where local roads were built with only a small local population in mind but which today are burdened by the daily thoroughfare of local commuters going into and out of the city. Bulla Road, in the still tiny town of Bulla in my electorate, runs through to the satellite suburb of Sunbury and is one such example of a road where many local residents are forced on a daily basis to battle the delays, inconveniences and frustration of peak-hour traffic. I can attest to that frustration because I have been caught at that time as I moved through my electorate. It is indeed a horrendous situation for the locals and for people who wish to use Bulla Road to come in and out of Sunbury.

Calwell is also home to Melbourne airport and a number of freight and export companies that rely on the airport to keep their businesses going, as well as being a centre for manufacturing in Victoria. The Hume Highway is one of the main arterial roads running from Sydney to Melbourne and it cuts a direct path right through my electorate. This means that heavy vehicles are frequently on our local roads. We often talk about the use by heavy vehicles of the Hume Highway. I would say that on a daily basis there are thousands on that road that often find ways to meander through my electorate onto smaller roads, creating pressures and undue concerns for the people who live there.

Keeping on top of the many challenges that these issues pose in terms of road safety and the adequacy of our local road infrastructure in Calwell is crucial. This is why the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008, which I speak to today, is a very important bill. The bill contains two main provisions. The first is to amend the definition of ‘road’ in the AusLink (National Land Transport) Act 2005 to allow for the funding of heavy vehicle facilities like off-road rest stops and heavy vehicle bays. In particular, this bill seeks to expand the current definition of a road to include ‘a facility off the road used by heavy vehicles in connection with travel on the road’. This includes off-road rest stops, heavy vehicle bays, weigh stations and decoupling areas but not commercial developments such as food or fuel outlets or motels.

To build more off-road facilities designed to accommodate heavy vehicles, the government has committed $70 million under its Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program announced by the Treasurer in the last budget. In addition to funding off-road facilities, the program also makes provision for trialling new technologies that electronically monitor a truck driver’s work hours and vehicle speed, as well as road capacity enhancements that will enable high-productivity vehicles to use more of the road network. These measures are designed to tackle driver fatigue and improve road safety—measures that all motorists will welcome, including those living in my electorate of Calwell.

The importance of these measures takes on added weight when it is remembered that there were over 200 road deaths on Australian roads involving heavy vehicles last year alone, with speed and fatigue often being key contributing factors. Yet, despite this emphasis on improving road safety, the opposition seems determined to block these important measures in the Senate. Sadly, it seems that the safety of Australian motorists comes a distant second to the recalcitrance of an out of touch opposition.

The funding allocated under the government’s Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program will be offset by an increase in the heavy vehicle road user charge. Only last June, the former transport minister and now Leader of the Nationals, Mr Warren Truss, was advocating just such an increase to the heavy vehicle road-user charge. Yet the opposition has now decided to do a backflip on this issue, blocking the passage of this charge in the Senate in much the same way that it is doing with a raft of other legislation, such as the government’s plans to invest in Australia’s ailing public dental healthcare system, which was left to badly deteriorate under 11 years of the Howard government. Obstructionism for its own sake is not what the Australian public expect of a credible opposition, and they certainly deserve better.

The second provision of this bill is to extend the life of the Roads to Recovery program for another five years through to 30 June 2014. Under the current act, this program is due to end on 30 June 2009. This extension will see the Rudd government commit a record $1.75 billion over the next five years to help improve local roads around Australia. In essence, the Roads to Recovery program provides additional funding to local government for improvements to both urban and rural roads, with grants being paid directly to local councils to help upgrade and improve local road infrastructure. This funding serves to supplement the money local councils spend on roads.

This financial year, Hume City Council, whose borders coincide identically with those of my electorate of Calwell, received just under $780,000 under the government’s Roads to Recovery program. This is on top of the $9.8 million that the Rudd government is providing to Hume City Council in financial assistance grants over the coming financial year to fund improvements to roads and services within the city of Hume and, by extension, within my electorate of Calwell. The Roads to Recovery program is an important source of funding when it comes to improving local road infrastructure and road safety for local residents living in Craigieburn, Sunbury, Roxburgh Park, Greenvale, Tullamarine, Broadmeadows and across the breadth of my electorate. The five-year extension to this program that is contained within this bill not only ensures that this important source of Commonwealth funding will continue to be made available for the improvement of our local roads in Calwell; it also provides local councils like that of Hume with the certainty they need to be able to plan ahead for road upgrades and safety improvements.

Another source of AusLink funding through which the Rudd government has continued to help improve road safety in Calwell is the federal Black Spot Program. Just last month I had the pleasure of announcing an additional $393,000 in Commonwealth funds to fix three dangerous black spots in my electorate. Under the latest round of accident black spot funding, the Rudd government will provide $205,000 to install speed humps and associated signs, remove the traffic island at Edmund Street, paint a centre line, provide indented roadside parking and upgrade street lighting on King Street between Barry Road and Terang Street in Dallas. In the five-year period to 2006, there have been four accidents on King Street causing injury along this stretch of road, with three of those crashes involving parked cars and one involving a turning related incident. All occurred at night, with traffic congestion and speed significant contributing factors.

I also announced $105,000 in funding to install traffic lights, with pedestrian crossings, at Station Street and Evans Street in Sunbury. In the same five-year period to 2006, there were seven accidents causing injury at this intersection, with the majority of those the result of turning related incidents. And an additional $83,000 has also been committed to fund the installation of traffic lights, with pedestrian crossings, where David Munroe Drive intersects with Stainsby Crescent and the shopping centre access road in Roxburgh Park—one of the high growth suburbs I mentioned earlier. There were injuries from a total of 10 crashes at this intersection over the five-year period to 2006. All were again turning related accidents, which, as any local resident will tell you, are inevitable given the blind corners involved at this intersection.

In relation to the improvements at Roxburgh Park, I would like to briefly mention the efforts of a Roxburgh Park resident and a constituent of mine, Mr Antonio Taranto, who took it upon himself to lobby the council and the government for a period of about four years to draw attention to the need to do something about the dangers associated with this road close to his home. Antonio is in his 70s and retired but decided that he had to make it his job to secure the safety of his neighbourhood. He spent those years putting a petition together. He was able to collect in excess of 400 signatures from local residents calling for traffic lights to be installed at the intersection of David Munroe Drive and Stainsby Crescent. His efforts, I can say, made all the difference. I want to take this opportunity to recognise him because he did an amazing job. He documented his campaign in such a way that it is almost a historical document or even a proforma for anybody on how to lobby local, state and federal governments in order to achieve an outcome. Antonio certainly did, and I had the great pleasure of being able to visit him at home and tell him that his mission had finally been achieved.

All three road safety upgrades in Dallas, Sunbury and Roxburgh Park will be funded under, and made possible by, the federal government’s Black Spot Program. Extending the government’s Roads to Recovery program for another five years and continuing to invest in improvements to local road infrastructure will be welcomed by local residents and motorists not just across my electorate but across Australia.

The same can be said about plans to improve local road safety by building additional heavy vehicle facilities like off-road rest stops and heavy vehicle bays. Both are key tenets of the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008, which demonstrates this government’s commitment to improving road safety as well as the quality of our local roads and local road infrastructure. It is for these reasons that I support this bill and commend it to the House.

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