Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Any death from a road crash is one too many. We've seen too many families left shattered and devastated by the death of a loved one as a result of a road accident. We also cannot forget those who are suffering from long-term and life-changing injuries because of a road crash that should not have happened. Road crashes destroy lives. Every one of us—each level of government, every Australian—plays a vital role in ensuring the safety of people on our roads.

That is why the establishment of the Morrison government's Road Safety Program will be a vital step towards ensuring the safety of all Australians who use our roads, and I'm proud to be part of a government that is committed to protecting those on Australia's roads by increasing our investment in infrastructure and the effective monitoring of interventions. The Morrison government is making greater protection possible for rural and regional roads and for vulnerable road users, like cyclists and pedestrians, in urban areas in leaps and bounds because of the Road Safety Program, which is also expected to support around 13,500 jobs. Our country is a better place thanks to these sorts of essential government programs.

Millions of Australians use our roads every day—going to and from work, home to their family or to the beach for a day out on the weekends. We have truck drivers delivering necessary supplies from state to state, police patrolling our roads to keep the community safe, paramedics heading out in the ambulance to help sick patients, essential workers going about their daily commute, business owners opening their businesses for the day, Australian Defence Force personnel using the roads to go to and from training exercises, cyclists going for a ride on their bikes and pedestrians walking across the road for a cup of coffee or to get to work. They all deserve to be able to navigate around our roads and go about their day safely so that they can go home to their family safe and sound every day.

In this budget, an additional $1 billion has been committed to continue road safety upgrades through the Road Safety Program in 2022-23. This brings the fund to a total of $3 billion, which means $783 million for the state of Queensland, where my electorate is based. I have long been fighting for upgraded infrastructure and safer roads for my electorate of Longman because I know that the community will greatly benefit from some of the Road Safety Program funding—especially in the case of Bribie Island Road, which is used by many people every day and is currently undergoing upgrades. I would like to see more funding for the electorate of Longman for the life-saving road treatments where they are needed most, which includes shoulder sealing and audio tactile line marking, centre line treatments and barriers to protect against roadside hazards on high-risk state highways and arterial roads.

In addition to the Road Safety Program, the government's record $110 billion 10-year infrastructure pipeline will support and secure jobs, drive growth and help rebuild Australia's economy from the COVID-19 pandemic. These investments form part of the Australian government's economic recovery plan and will secure Australia's world-leading economic recovery by delivering nation-building infrastructure projects, providing water security to inland Australia, meeting our national freight challenge and getting Australians home sooner and safer.

I'm glad to see that the Road Safety Program's funding is provided on a 'use it or lose it' basis and that it's directly tied to the outcome of improving road safety, requiring states and territories to use their funding within each six-month tranche in order to receive their full allocation of funding for the next tranche, unless exceptional circumstances exist. I believe that this will prevent long delays when it comes to getting on with building road infrastructure and ensure that road maintenance is carried out in a more timely fashion. I know that many people in Longman were left disappointed and dismayed by the amount of time it took to get started on the Bribie Island Road upgrade, which quite frankly wasn't acceptable. It was the same with the overpass at Narangba and Deception Bay, which, again, was delayed by a couple of years.

The first tranche of works under the program, which is currently underway now, is upgrading more than 6,000 kilometres of road around the nation, and, with our additional investment, this is a step in the right direction when it comes to protecting motorists and pedestrians who use our roads on a daily basis. We can only go up from here when it comes to making our roads safe. We do all this to aspire to achieve our ultimate goal—to never lose another life on our roads again.

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