Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Hansard source

It's not the first time that I've stood in this place to remind those opposite what government's primary purpose is, and that is to keep its citizens safe. Often I'm referring to the national geopolitical trend or trends, but today my focus couldn't be more local or more grassroots. It's something that impacts everybody, no matter where you live. And, if you live in rural or regional Australia, statistically and tragically, you are disproportionately impacted. I am talking of road trauma. No matter how much money, effort or goodwill we have poured into reducing road trauma across Australia over the past 20 years, it has failed. That's a fact.

In 2004 there were 1,583 deaths on Australian roads, and in 2013 there were 1,193. In this year, to date, it is 1,310. There has been no statistical improvement. In Tasmania, it's a similar story. In 2014 we had 33 fatalities and 267 serious injuries. In 2023 those figures had risen to 35 fatalities and 309 serious injuries. Although young adults under 25 make up just 11 per cent of the Tasmanian population, 16- to 25-year-olds make up 21 per cent—21 per cent—of all deaths and serious injuries on Tasmanian roads. So the question is: what can we do about this? Well, we know that this is happening. We can see the statistics but, clearly, we are yet to identify and to implement best practice countermeasures to combat this terrible waste of human life.

Data means everything. It is impossible to implement an effective road safety strategy without meaningful data collection across all Australian jurisdictions. I am sure that the public will be perplexed when I tell them currently there is no state or territory government that provides road safety data to the federal government. As we draw to the end of this Albanese government's term, they have done nothing to rectify this. This is despite their promises in the lead-up to the election that they would look at this very important oversight. Two years on and they have not moved—well, not until my good friend the member for Barker lodged this important and pertinent motion. Now all of a sudden it has become very important to Minister King, because the member for Barker has shone an important spotlight on another broken promise by the Prime Minister that he has tried to sweep this under the carpet.

In 2023, the Australian road network recorded its deadliest six months in nearly 14 years, yet data relating to the quality of our state and territory roads remains a secret. The cause of these crashes remain the privileged information of the state and territory governments respectively. The effectiveness of each state's road rules and enforcement regime is not shared. Without this shared data we will never be able to develop effective countermeasures to reduce road death or trauma that would not only save lives but it would go a long way towards ending the politicisation of road funding. We would know whether or not governments are investing in the roads that need the safety upgrades, whether they are investing in roads to shore up marginal seats.

We all have a part to play in reducing deaths and injuries from road accidents. This includes the road designers, the vehicle manufacturers, road users and the like. But the decision of policymakers at the state and federal government level must be at the forefront of driving our goal of zero road deaths. I call on the minister to honour the Albanese government's promise to compel states and territories to provide better quality data in return for funding road projects. Australia is facing a road safety crisis and the data states and territories hold is key to developing a meaningful solution—that is, a meaningful reduction in road deaths and injuries in our states and territories.

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