Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes the important, practical contribution the Black Spot Program makes in addressing the nation's road toll under the National Road Safety Action Plan 2018-2020;

(2) recognises the need for the Government to continue to invest in the Black Spot Program to improve road safety and reduce the death toll;

(3) commends the Government for putting road safety at the forefront of infrastructure investment, with further commitments to providing an additional $50 million per year from 2019-20 to 2022-2023 to the Black Spot Program; and

(4) acknowledges the Government's Black Spot Program reduces on average at the treated sites, death and serious injury from crashes by 30 per cent according to data from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics.

It is an important issue that I speak about today, this private members' motion that I've put forward. I'm pleased to speak on it because road safety is everyone's responsibility. It doesn't matter whether you're a truck driver or a cyclist or a pedestrian you have a responsibility to use the road network, our road transport system, in a way that ensures that you get home safely and that your conduct gives other road users the best opportunity to get home safely. We all need to strive for that goal of zero fatalities.

Here in Australia, and in most of the developed countries, we've adopted a safe systems approach. This is a methodology that's built on the premise that humans, road users, are fallible and that we will make mistakes and that we need to educate drivers to the best of our ability. But we also need to ensure that we have the best technologies for our vehicles to make them as safe as possible and that the standards for our vehicles are as high as they possibly can be. Another responsibility is, of course, building safe infrastructure and that's a very important element of the safe systems approach.

As the federal government our main responsibility with the road transport network is the national highway—some 14,000 km of national highway. We heavily fund big infrastructure projects in conjunction with the states, but we mustn't forget, and we don't forget, as a government that there is some 900,000 kilometres of roads in this country and they are the responsibility of both the states and the local governments. That's where the Commonwealth helps out with other kinds of funding, such as the Bridges Renewal Program and the Roads to Recovery program. These are major funding initiatives under which the Commonwealth, in conjunction with local governments and the states, puts forward money to ensure that we have the safest road network. The Black Spot Program fits into that category.

The Black Spot program is part of our National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020. It's a program that enables individuals, local governments or states to apply for funding where a location has a crash history or a record of serious incidents. Under the funding we can put in some form of treatment to remedy it. That treatment might be signage or a roundabout or lights. There are any number of different options that can be put forward under the Black Spot Program, which is why it is a successful program.

The Commonwealth government takes this program very seriously. In the last budget we committed some $50 million in addition to the existing $60 million that had been contributed to the fund, putting our annual contribution to $110 million a year. Over the decade 2013 to 2023 we'll have spent some $1 billion. Already since we've been in government some 2,300 treatments to roads, improving their standard, have been completed under the Black Spot Program. We know that the majority of serious crashes happen in rural and regional areas, so 50 per cent of all black-spot funding is assured of going to non-metropolitan areas.

The true indicator of the value of the black-spot funding is the results. It has been proven that where black-spot funding has been used there has been a 30 per cent reduction in fatal and serious accidents. That is quite an outstanding reduction in accidents and is something that we need to take note of. It's certainly something we need to continue to fund. It's estimated that some 280 lives will have been saved and 14,000 serious crashes will have been prevented in the decade. I encourage everyone to ensure that they keep a close eye on this program and put in an application where possible.

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