Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Hansard source

In rising, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the ministerial statement on the progress of the National Road Safety Strategy. In doing so, I would like to stress the largely bipartisan nature of the political debate right across Australia in relation to the urgent need to reduce the impact of road trauma in our community. In that spirit of bipartisanship, I would like to congratulate the minister on her appointment as the Minister for Road Safety. As others in the industry have remarked, it will certainly help to elevate the issue of road safety to a new level in the Commonwealth and I commend the minister for her efforts in that regard.

As a regionally based MP, something I share with the member for Ballarat, I think we have a shared concern about the disproportionate number of rural and regional road users who continue to die or are seriously injured on our roads, both on our regional highways and on our local road networks. I think it is also a source of enormous anguish for you, Deputy Speaker, in your regional electorate that people in our regional communities continue to suffer a disproportionate amount. It troubles me deeply that although the overall road toll has reduced across Australia in recent years, the regional road toll has not responded at the same rate. This is despite not only the very good efforts of community groups and local government, which the minister referred to in her report, but also of state governments and now the federal government. I think it remains an enormous challenge for us all to confront in this place, but particularly the regional members on both sides of the chamber.

The minister was right to make the point that the issue of road safety is not a simple one. It is not just about increased enforcement activities by police, although that is important. It is not just about improved driver behaviour, although we do know that distraction, excessive speed, use of mobile phones and so forth, and drink-driving are all important issues. And it is not just about building safer roads or having safer vehicles. It is a combination of all of these factors and about making sure we do as much as we possibly can do right in the interests of reducing road trauma wherever possible.

There is a very complex equation or sequence of events that can contribute to a road accident occurring—or can contribute to a road accident not occurring through prevention measures that have been put in place in the first place. On top of that, there is the equally complex equation that will decide how serious the injuries are of the people who have been involved in that accident: whether there has been an appropriate road treatment put in place to minimise the level of damage to a vehicle, whether there are emergency services available in a time effective manner, whether in fact there are mobile phone services available for people to seek help in the first place. These are all part of this complex equation about whether we can prevent accidents and, when they do occur, how we minimise the damage—obviously to the people involved but also to the broader economy. It is by no means a simple issue that we are talking about here today and there are no simple answers or silver bullets in relation to the road toll.

As the minister indicated in her progress report, there has been some good news and some bad news in relation to the key target of the National Road Safety Strategy to reduce the annual number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads by at least 30 per cent by 2020. In 2012 more than 1,300 people died on Australian roads, which is a 2.5 per cent increase in the number of deaths that were recorded in 2011. Thankfully, it is contrary to the longer term trend of reductions in the overall toll. But the obvious question for this place is: are the reductions, are the improvements, happening fast enough? Are we doing everything we possibly or reasonably can as a nation to save ourselves from that enormous economic cost of road trauma, which is estimated at more than $27 billion per year—and that is quite aside from the very significant social costs as lives are shattered and loved ones are left to grieve.

Personally, I believe we can do better. In fact, we must do better if we are to reclaim our place as a world leader on road safety. That is not just my view; to quote from the National road safety strategy 2011-2020:

Over the past several decades, Australia has earned an international reputation as a model country in many areas of road safety intervention. But the overall performance in recent times has not kept pace with the achievements of other developed countries, and there is a need for a major shift in thinking by governments and the community.

Against international levels our relative performance has fallen. If there was a road safety Olympics, we would not win a medal at the moment. That is a concern for a nation that has a very proud record in relation to road safety. If we had a road safety Olympics right now, Australia would not feature in the medals.

I am not by any stretch trying to disparage the efforts made by this government or by people in our community, but I believe it is time for us to reset the clock on the road toll and to raise our aspirations. That is our challenge here today: how are we going to implement the programs and projects that we know work, and also when are we going to encourage innovation to make improvements wherever possible? I fear that, as a community, we have become perhaps complacent or perhaps just accepting of the road toll. We seem to be almost resigned to the fact that accidents will always happen and there is not much we can do about it. I beg to differ, and I think there is more we can do and we must never rest in that regard.

That is also the view of industry stakeholders, who I am sure the minister has met with and discussed this issue with. They have the view as well that there is more we can do to reduce both the prevalence of accidents and the severity of those accidents when they do occur. I have had the opportunity to meet over the past two years with peak motoring bodies and leading researchers in this space, and they argue to me there is more we can do and that we must do more in reducing the toll, particularly that severe economic impact of $27 billion per year to the national economy and obviously, as I said earlier, the severe emotional impact on people who have lost loved ones on our roads.

I stress that my comments are not intended in any way to be a criticism of the minister or the current government at a federal level. As I said at the outset, I believe the minister's appointment has helped to give prominence to this issue at a national level, but I think we can do more. I am confident that if there is a coalition government after September it will aim to continue to provide national leadership on road safety with a focus on, as the minister correctly said, building safer roads, supporting the rollout of safer vehicles and promoting improved driver behaviour. While the nation's road toll has steadily fallen from nearly 2,900 deaths in 1982 to 1,300 in 2012, I want a new coalition government to recognise that more needs to be done to reduce that road toll and to reduce the number of serious injuries from vehicle accidents.

I have taken the advice of key stakeholders across the nation and I share their view that there must be a more holistic approach from governments to reducing road trauma in recognition of the social and economic impacts we have already referred to across the entire community. Across the broad range of government departments there needs to be renewed focus on reducing the public health impacts of road trauma and leading the public debate on road safety initiatives with a partnership approach across all levels of government, the research agencies, community groups, vehicle manufacturers and other stakeholders.

At the moment I think we see the issue of road safety through the paradigms of the new Minister for Road Safety or through the ministry of transport but there is no doubt that the issue of road safety plays out across a whole range of government departments, including the department of health, and there are issues that should be dealt with by the minister for youth and issues that need to be dealt with by the minister for Indigenous affairs. We need to take a more holistic approach and develop strategies to ensure that all government departments and ministries with a relevant role in road safety take up the responsibility and take up the challenge of reducing the impact of the road toll on our community.

I am concerned that at the moment there is too much confusion and duplication of effort in relation to road safety. I recognise that different jurisdictions have the right to have different approaches to road safety but there is confusion within our community at the moment relating to the inconsistency in the graduated licensing system, the safety messages across state borders, the enforcement programs and the road laws themselves, which vary too much across state borders. I would be hopeful, if not confident, that in the future it may be possible for us to do the research and develop a best practice model in relation to road safety and then encourage all jurisdictions to roll out the best practice model in a coordinated and cohesive manner. As it stands today, if Australians move across state or even territory borders here in the ACT, they face a confusing range of laws, regulations and penalties, particularly when it comes to the systems adopted for learner and P-plate drivers. There is an inconsistency between the ACT and New South Wales about the speeds that learner drivers are allowed to drive at. It is ridiculous that in the 21st century we cannot come up with a best practice model and ensure that it is implemented right across our nation.

I take up the minister's references earlier to the government's record in relation to improving the safety of roads because the coalition itself also has a proud record in terms of investing in the safety of our road network. It was the coalition that initiated the Roads to Recovery program more than a decade ago. Also the coalition took a policy to the last election for bridge renewals, which I think is an important initiative. We support the government in its efforts in relation to black spots and its commitment to invest in more rest areas. These are policy commitments that the coalition has made and the government has also been implementing over the past five years.

I think it is foolish for any minister—and I am certainly not referring to the Minister for Road Safety—to stand in this place and suggest that previous governments did nothing. The coalition government did invest in improving our road network. I find it sometimes reckless of ministers, like the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, to claim that the coalition did nothing in relation to investing in the road network. No government ever does nothing. No government ever sets out to not improve the lot of the Australian people. I think it was reckless for the minister for transport to make those types of claims because I know that the former minister for transport worked diligently in his role to improve road safety across the nation within the confines of the budgetary circumstances he was faced with.

I also note the campaign by various Australian motoring organisations. I am sure many other members in this place have been inundated with demands from their constituents for more funding for road improvements. I support those associations in their efforts because we recognise that investing in safer roads and improving the safety of the road environment will save lives. I commend the government for the improvements it has made in that space and recognise that the former coalition government worked diligently in that regard as well.

I recently made some comments in this place—and I think the minister may have made some thinly veiled reference to this in her report—in relation to the message we need to send to international vehicle manufacturers. I think a couple of weeks ago now I referred to the fact that I consider it important that any future coalition government sends a message to vehicle manufacturers throughout the world that we consider safety to be the highest priority when it comes to new vehicles. It remains my personal view that we should ban the importation of any vehicle that is sold in volume in Australia that does not achieve a minimum of three-star—preferably four-star—ANCAP safety rating. The current government has quite rightly moved to a position where its own fleet of light passenger vehicles must achieve a five-star ANCAP safety rating. I congratulate the government for that move because we know that having safer vehicles on our roads can lower the road toll.

I think we should be sending a signal now to the international vehicle manufacturing market that in a specified time in the future we do not intend to keep allowing the importation of vehicles that have comparatively low ANCAP safety ratings. It is a view that some in the industry have strongly endorsed since I made those comments. I note that the minister herself in her comments here today strongly endorsed the fact that safer vehicles do matter. I commend the work the government is doing in relation to its support for ANCAP, which will allow the authority to test more vehicles, and the government's desire to see the rollout of new technologies, such as the electronic stability control system and the brake assist systems. I am concerned about the relatively poor performance in terms of safety ratings of some of the vehicles that are on sale in Australia at the moment. I believe we can send a message to the international market that in the future Australia will be encouraging all vehicles on sale in Australia to achieve a higher ANCAP safety rating.

As the minister rightfully acknowledged in her progress report, there are 59 action items in the National Road Safety Strategy across the four cornerstone areas of safe roads, safe speeds, safe vehicles and safe people. It is important that the minister come to the House and report on the success or otherwise of the strategy because everyone in this place has a genuine concern for the amount of road trauma in our communities and what steps are being taken at the federal level to reduce that wherever possible.

In conclusion, I finish where I started. I believe that elevating the issue of road safety in our national debate is an important measure. I commend the government for the work it has done in that regard. I welcome the minister's progress report. I commit the coalition to continuing to work in a bipartisan manner wherever possible to further the goals of the National Road Safety Strategy in the interests of saving lives and in the interests of reducing trauma and delivering economic benefits to all Australians.

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