Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bendigo for her contribution and also the member for Ballarat for her second reading amendment, which reads:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House criticises the Government for its failure to appropriately prepare for the significant reforms introduced by the Act, which aim to ensure that Australians are kept safe on our roads".

As stated by previous speakers, the Labor opposition support the passage of the Road Vehicle Standards Legislation Amendment Bill 2019, but we totally reject the assertion that the delay is at the request of the industry. It's actually because of a lack of planning from this coalition government and a lack of resourcing for the department to upgrade its IT systems. Now, let's put this into the appropriate context: we've got a government well into its third term, now in its seventh year in office—yes, that's correct—and no-one to blame but itself, yet we've got a department not able to upgrade its IT systems in order to roll out this program. The Road Vehicle Standards Act and associated legislation actually passed last year, and that created a modern regulatory framework to ensure road vehicles and certain road vehicle components provided in Australia meet the appropriate safety, anti-theft and, most importantly, environmental standards that are required. They also gave affect to our international obligations when it comes to vehicle standards.

There are positive road safety innovations and environmental benefits that flow from the updated regulatory framework which would give greater powers to ensure unsafe vehicles are not on Australian roads, which is obviously what we want. That will keep more Australians safe, and there will be more flexibility to accommodate innovation, which seems to be coming on us so quickly. When you sit in a new car, you're amazed at what's there.

After an extensive period of consultation with industry, the release of an exposure draft of the legislation and a Senate inquiry—so lots of lead-up, lots of input, lots of process and lots of consultation throughout Australia—it's very disappointing to see that the Morrison government has not actually been doing its job. It's asleep at the wheel. It seems to be focused on being the opposition to the opposition rather than actually taking control of the steering wheel of government and heading the country in the direction it wants. Instead of developing policies, procedures and IT systems to ensure that the legislation can commence as planned, it's focused on cheap politics and trying to wedge the Labor Party. Every second release that comes from those opposite is saying, 'This is a test for the Labor Party.' Well, the real test comes every month when they receive their payment for being members of the government. They are paid to do their job; instead they're focused on being the opposition to the opposition. So the Labor opposition, the actual opposition, call on the Morrison government to make a firm commitment that will provide the necessary resourcing and direction to the department to ensure that there are no further delays.

Here's a little bit of history to this: the Motor Vehicle Standards Act came in in 1989. Back in 1989, the Wheels magazine Car of the Year was the Mazda MX-5—to put things into a bit of context. In 2002, the legislation was reviewed and updated. It had a grease and oil change done on the regulations. Back then, the Car of the Year was the Ford Falcon BA. Now, in 2019, the Car of the Year is completely different to those two cars that I mentioned—the Mazda MX-5 and the Ford Falcon BA. It's the Volvo XC40, a completely different vehicle. The legislation passed last year was developed over five years. There was a lot of input from industry as well as the development of international standards and technological changes. All of this work started way back in 2013. Five years is a long time for the government to not update an IT system and not work with industry to ensure that all parts of industry are ready to go from the date of royal assent.

The coalition government tell us some $68 million will be saved each year as a result of this new regulatory regime. Unfortunately, industry and, most importantly, the Australian public will now need to wait almost another 24 months before they'll be in a position to realise the safety and financial benefits that the new Road Vehicle Standards Act will deliver.

Let's hear from some of the stakeholders. The Caravan Industry Association is a very important stakeholder. Anyone who has driven on country roads in Queensland, especially around this time of year, will know how important it is to get it right for caravans. They are strongly supportive of the original package of legislative changes. The association advised that Australian caravan and trailer manufacturers have invested significant financial resources in ensuring that they are ready for the implementation on the date set out in the package of legislation. They're very concerned that the delay will actually disadvantage those who are prepared and who have made the changes and that, more scarily, it will actually allow more potentially unsafe products to enter the Australian market, particularly from overseas suppliers. They say, 'The postponement is an action of convenience, due to the provision of insignificant resources being allocated to the department to roll out the RVSA, along with actions taken from other sectors who have not taken their obligations to be prepared for the RVSA in a timely manner.' Other industry associations have mixed views on the delay and acknowledge that the department is not ready to go.

In September 2017 the coalition government appointed a panel of road safety experts to conduct an inquiry into the National Road Safety Strategy, which was clearly failing to make a material improvement in our road toll. The report was handed to the Deputy Prime Minister in September last year. I just want to point out something about the Deputy Prime Minister: he represents a regional area, a bit like the member for Ballarat and the member for Bendigo. He is a Nationals MP—the party that supposedly speaks up for the bush. Obviously anyone that understands road accidents knows that rural and remote areas do it tougher. I'm very proud of having been a member of the Labor Party that made significant investments in road infrastructure in the bush, as well as those other great contributions which, as the Labor Party, we've always made to the bush: investing in schools in the bush, NBN, Medicare—there are so many things that the Labor Party invests in and does so much for in rural and remote communities. But we find that the modern National Party seems to have forgotten the bush and seems to have forgotten what it's actually paid to do. It's supposed to represent the interests of the bush. The Deputy Prime Minister received this report in September last year, yet the champion of the bush is yet to respond. We are one year on and the responsible minister, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, is yet to respond.

The review's two co-chairs are eminent Australians in this field. Dr John Crozier, a leading trauma surgeon at Liverpool Hospital, is very eminent and well respected, as is Associate Professor Jeremy Woolley, director of the Centre for Automotive Safety Research at the University of Adelaide. In March this year they publicly released a video saying that they were 'underwhelmed'. What that is code for is that they are incredibly upset that the Deputy Prime Minister is just sitting on his hands.

The government's lack of response to the inquiry's findings is amazing. The road toll is higher now than it was four years ago. In the 12 months to 30 June this year 1,214 people died on Australian roads, compared with 1,170 in the 12 months to 30 June 2015. Coming from country Queensland, I note that rural and remote communities particularly experience the trauma, as they do so much driving. It's important that we get the settings right for the bush.

Of the 33 individual indicators in the National Road Safety Strategy, which has been in place since 2011, only nine are on track to being met over the strategy's 10-year time frame. I was contacted by one of my constituents who was concerned about this and about the fact that it was basically snuck out on a Friday afternoon. We are eight years into a 10-year strategy and the government still cannot actually measure eight of the indicators, including one of the strategy's two headline targets—that is, the reduction of serious injuries by 30 per cent.

The key finding of the Review of national road safety governance arrangements was that the Commonwealth:

… has not provided sufficiently strong leadership, coordination or advocacy on road safety to drive national trauma reductions.

As I said, it's like the National Party, in particular, is asleep at the wheel. I use that metaphor deliberately. Deputy Prime Minister McCormack is a National Party MP. His own department authored the report critical of the lack of Commonwealth leadership to drive down road trauma. The review of national road safety governance arrangements is one of the few recommendations of the inquiry into the National Road Safety Strategy to be actioned. The review examined whether Australia has the appropriate governance arrangements in place to deliver the commitments made by governments—Labor and coalition—to mainstream road safety in line with the safe system approach. That would actually save lives.

The review also identified ways for the Australian government to work in partnership with the state, territory and local governments to bring down the number of road deaths and serious injuries. Obviously, it is a three-level coordination requirement. It's time for the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, the Leader of the Nationals, to speak up. For too long the National Party in this particular area has turned into a lap dog of the Liberal Party. It's now time that the bush actually got a sheep dog or maybe even a pig dog—something with some teeth and that knows how to bite—rather than just a dog that is prepared to roll over and beg for the bone that's never thrown.

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