Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

As much as I like the member for Macquarie, I have to say that I earnestly disagree with some of the comments that he made—scripted, of course, from the Albanese government's talking points. I headed up many infrastructure and transport ministers meetings. I went to those meetings in good faith. I implored some of those state ministers to come on board with us in relation to road safety data collection. Sadly, all too often you go to these meetings in good faith as a Commonwealth minister. The states will agree politely, and there will be a great discourse about what we need to do. Then they will return to their respective capital cities and all will be forgotten. Even though at a national meeting they may well have agreed that they will do something about it, the difficulty is that they will go back, and because they hold so near and dear to the jurisdictional obligations they feel, they won't do things in the national interest. Other ministers who've headed up similar forums would tell the chamber this and back me up every step of the way, and I'm sure Labor will find this out. It's unfortunate. They'll do things in our own political interest to keep that niche, that obligation they've got to the states.

This is a good motion. I commend the member for Barker. His electorate is more than 63,000 square kilometres. Mine is nearly 49,000 square kilometres. That of the member for O'Connor, who will speak after me, is 1.1 million kilometres squared of land. We know about roads and we provided record funding for roads. When you provide that money in infrastructure budget—it was $110 billion when I was the Deputy Prime Minister—every piece of road funding equates to road safety. Every piece of bitumen that you put on a previously unsealed road leads to better road safety outcomes.

As the member for Barker has quite correctly pointed out, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. He is so right. The quantified financial cost of road trauma to the Australian economy in 2016 was estimated to be more than $33 billion. Imagine what it is now. That was in 2016; we're now in 2022. We do need these road statistics to be compiled, because if you have proper data that is available, ready and easily accessed by all concerned, be they states, the Commonwealth or other stakeholders, it will lead to better outcomes.

I also commend the Australian Automobile Association, I had a good relationship with Michael Bradley and still do. The work they do in this area is admirable. We do need to be able to get on board. The member for Macarthur was in here. In the meeting I was talking about, the initial infrastructure and transport meeting under the new Labor government in August, road safety wasn't listed as a discussion item—what a pity, what a great missed opportunity.

I wear the badge that Peter Frazer has put out there for SARAH, Safer Australian Roads and Highways. Sarah is the name of his daughter, who was killed in 2012 on the Hume Highway while heading to Wagga Wagga to study. The driver who struck her and tow-truck driver Geoff Clark was distracted for 11 seconds. I was silent then for 11 seconds. It's a long time. Look away from the road for that amount of time and you don't know what's going to happen. Eleven seconds is a very long time. Peter has dedicated and devoted his life to making sure that road safety is something that is paramount in every person who gets behind the steering wheel, and I'm sure he would commend the member for Barker, as I do, for bringing this motion to this important parliament, to this important debate. Peter Frazer doesn't want to see anyone else suffer like his family has. He received an order of Australia medal for his efforts to improve road safety, so I commend the member for Barker. I love Peter Frazer; he's a great bloke. Anything I can do and that we as a parliament can do to improve road safety outcomes we should do.

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