Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We recently commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, recognising the end of the First World War, where over 61,000 Australians lost their lives. Two decades later, a further 39,000 Australians lost their lives in World War II. In those two conflicts alone, 100,000 Australians lost their lives, every one of those deaths a tragedy, with grieving by family and friends. But, since the end of World War II, 150,000 Australians—50 per cent more than we lost in both World Wars—have been killed on our roads. This is simply not good enough. There is some good news amongst those numbers: since 1970 we've seen a significant decline in the road toll, from 3,780, or 30.4 deaths for every 100,000 people, down last year to 1,225 deaths—that is, down to just five deaths for every 100,000 people. But that is still far too many. To have a thousand Australians a year die on the roads—men, women and children that are just going about their everyday business—is completely unsatisfactory. We as parliamentarians all need to work on road safety, and one of the best ways we can do that is to make the cost of motoring cheaper. The statistics show that newer cars are safer. If we're able to reduce the cost of cars, we can get that road toll down.

See this speech in context