Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When I was a police officer in the traffic branch, before I would let a driver go, I would always say, 'Safe journey home.' Or, if it were a Chinese driver, I would say, 'Zai jian,' which translates as 'goodbye' or 'see you again'. Even as I said those words, I knew the journey was not always safe, and sometimes there was no 'again'. I've witnessed far too often the ugly heartbreak of death on Australian roads. I remember being called to a scene where a traffic crash happened between a bus and a motorcyclist. As a first responder, this tragedy stayed in my mind for a long time. I can only imagine the family's pain. That such a traffic accident could happen in a low-speed area, a 60-kilometre zone, makes this tragedy even more difficult to process.

Our Labor government is investing in road safety to help stem the rising road toll. We are doubling the Roads to Recovery funding from $500 million to $1 billion a year. We are also increasing the Black Spot Program funding. It's rising from $110 million to $150 million a year. For my constituents in Tangney, the Labor Black Spot program means the installation of a roundabout and upgraded street lighting at the intersection of Corbel Street and Modillion Avenue north in Shelley. In January 2021, a tragic accident happened at this intersection which claimed the life of a young 17-year-old boy. I'm thankful that this black spot funding has been addressed by our government and I'm grateful to his parents for advocating this change. I want to stress that everyone can advocate that black spots to be addressed—everyone can—so please advocate.

We are implementing the National Road Safety Strategy, which is supported by the National Road Safety Action Plan 2023-25. This plan is in collaboration with all states, territories and local governments because we must all cooperate and collaborate on this vital issue. The road safety action plan is linked with data collection, and one key action is for road safety data to be officially exchanged and published.

In April 2024 there was a historic first. Each of the state and territory governments signed an intergovernmental road safety data sharing agreement. We want to improve data sharing, have a nationally consistent dataset and have high quality and timely data. To support this effort, the Albanese Labor government has committed $21 million to the National Road Safety Data Hub.

When I was a police officer in the traffic section, I used to give infringements to drivers. I would ask them to please remember the reason. Sometimes they got infringements because of speeding, sometimes it was for not wearing a seatbelt and sometimes it was for using their mobile phones when they were driving. All drivers need to understand the importance of road safety and good driving behaviour. This is why we are providing $10.8 million for a national road safety and awareness campaign. Education and awareness are so important.

There has been $2.96 billion committed to the road safety program over five years to support the rollout of life-saving road safety treatments to ultimately reduce death and serious injury from crashes on our roads. It is estimated that this project will upgrade approximately 15,460 kilometres of Australia's roads.

We are focused on the delivery of this action plan, including committing $43.6 million to deliver non-infrastructure road safety programs. These comprehensive road safety measures are to help us to get to Vision Zero—zero fatalities and zero serious injuries on our roads—by 2050 so that all Australians can truly have a safe journey home.

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