Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges the importance of the Black Spot Road Safety Program, which has been delivering funding continuously since 1996 to reduce the risk of road crashes;

(2) notes that half of all road crashes are on local government roads, and these crashes account for 52 per cent of all casualties and 40 per cent of all road deaths;

(3) recognises that local government is responsible for around 77 per cent of the road network but only collects around 3.5 per cent of the total tax revenue raised by governments in Australia, and as such is heavily reliant on road funding from other levels of government;

(4) further notes that:

(a) two thirds of all road fatalities occur on regional roads; and

(b) the Black Spot Road Safety Program intention is to allocate funding on a half-half basis between urban and rural roads;

(5) further acknowledges that not all councils, in particular rural and regional councils with lower rate bases, have the resources necessary to make applications that meet criteria for the Black Spot Road Safety Program; and

(6) calls on the Government to amend the Black Spot Road Safety Program guidelines to make it easier for the local Government sector to access that fund.

I brought this private members' motion to the attention of this place because I want to highlight a number of things. I want to acknowledge the importance of the blackspot road safety program, which is a program that dates back to the very beginning of the Howard era in 1996. It has run continuously since then to reduce the risk of road crashes. I want to highlight the important role that local government has in managing our road network. Some 77 per cent of the road network is managed by the local government sector. I want to highlight that many of those local governments are small in size, so, while two-thirds of all fatalities occur on rural roads, many of these councils simply don't have the resources to make very detailed and involved applications for funding under the Black Spot Program. And I call on the government to consider amending program guidelines to make it easier.

The National Road Safety Strategy sets an ambitious but necessary task for Australians to reduce deaths on our roads by 50 per cent by 2026 and serious injuries by 30 per cent by the same date. Given that target, obviously investment in road safety programs is a priority. That's why governments continuously, from 1996, have invested heavily via the Black Spot Program. Indeed, this government notionally is investing $120.1 million, which has been allocated across the 2023-24 Black Spot Program nationwide, because, of course, we can't simply talk about reducing this death toll—we've actually got to do something about it.

When I say 'notionally invest in', I have to point out to this place that announcements have been made around the South Australian elements of the program, the Tasmanian elements of the program and the Victorian elements of the program to date. We're waiting on other announcements, but, if I just take Victoria, notionally there was $25.6 million allocated, but—would you believe it!—there was an underspend of $5.5 million. In South Australia, the notional allocation was $.5 million and the underspend was $2.9 million. In Tasmania, they recently announced a budget allocation of $3.1 million with an underspend of a touch over half a million dollars. So, in circumstances where we're seeing road deaths increasing disproportionately and, indeed, are well above not only historical numbers but also the trajectory that would get us to the 50 per cent reduction, you'd have to start asking yourself the question: Why?

Why have there been such significant underspends in this important program? Could it be that there are no infrastructure safety issues that are causing these deaths? Well, nobody would argue, I hope, that that's the case because we all know of situations that require additional road treatments. Could it be that insufficient applications have been made? Well, that could be the case, and, if that is the case, particularly from the local government sector, the feedback I'm getting is this program is just too difficult to make an application to.

The program has both proactive and reactive elements—proactively, reasonably difficult, and reactively, easier. Where there's been an accident causing death, then the criteria guidelines provide that this funding is accessible. It's where there are proactive programs where it's far more difficult. Those are situations where a road authority or a local council may well know that a section of road is dangerous but they need to undertake a road safety audit. That's expensive. That takes a long time, and you're not always successful. So what I want to see is a simplification of this program, in particular, how applications are made, so that we can get all of the funding out the door. I don't want to see significant underspends. An allocation of $31 million should see a spend of $31 million, an allocation of $8½ million should see a spend of $8½ million and an allocation of $3.1 million should see a full spend. Our road safety requires it.

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