Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Barker and the member for Wannon. We represent different parts of Australia. The members for Barker and Wannon represent rural and regional Australia for the most part, and I represent metropolitan Australia. I just want to acknowledge that this is an issue that covers every electorate, but it disproportionately affects rural and regional Australia because of the obvious fact that you have more trees on the side of the roads, cars going at speed directly opposite each other, and greater fatigue. That is why the road toll is, to our national shame, higher in rural and regional Australia. So I thank those members for their advocacy.

We're not just talking about numbers on a page. The member for Barker noted that the road toll per 100,000 is at 4.8. Every September, the MCG is full for the grand final, and at capacity it holds about 100,000 people. Imagine your one game of the year is that grand final, and the price you pay for that is that about five people in that stadium that day will not survive. That's the price you pay for attending that one game a year. All we are asking, and all both sides of politics have committed to, is to reduce that to two. We would move heaven and earth if five people died attending the grand final every year, but that sense of urgency isn't here.

The criminal law is a blunt instrument, and very few road accidents are about deliberate, intentional criminal activity. They're mostly in the field of negligence or recklessness, mostly by young men. There are three tools at our disposal to reduce the road toll: technology, training and infrastructure. As to technology, I myself survived a car accident because of technology. When I was a baby, our car was hit head-on by a truck, and, but for advances in seatbelt technology, I wouldn't be here. In terms of training, we know that young men are more prone to taking risks. You see it on the road. When a car shoots past you, zooms into a lane or cuts off another car, more often than not it is a young man who thinks that he will live forever. I saw that in a yearlong trial that I conducted for road fatalities. We heard from world-leading experts that the only antidote to that is supervised experience with someone showing you the way.

But the third part, infrastructure, is where the government can do the most work. We heard the fine speeches from those opposite about how every life matters and this issue is just a serious for them as it is for us, but let's judge them on their actions. In my seat of Menzies, there is a notorious intersection called Five Ways. It's called Five Ways because five roads intersect. The council have told us that, as a state road, all it needs is a roundabout, at the cost of $10 million. That's it—$10 million. Two years ago, just before I got elected, a young woman died at that intersection, and many others in the area know that they take their lives into their hands when they move through that notorious part of Melbourne.

Leading up to the election, the coalition had a commitment of $10 million. My Labor opponent said, in the local newspaper, they would match it. I thought, 'Great. Here is an example of bipartisanship, where we're agreeing that a problem is there, it can be solved and there's a plan.' But what happened? I went to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, in her ministerial suite, and when I sat down, surrounded by all the department officials, they shuffled some papers and said, 'We're really sorry, but our candidate didn't fill in the form. You can do with that what you want.' So the first reaction was a process one. Whatever paperwork was supposed to be filled in by the Labor Party wasn't filled in, so I was told, and instead of the minister saying, 'But I will do it anyway; I will honour that commitment,' it was 'You can use it for political purposes.' Well, the minister can shove the political purposes, with respect. The correct response was to say, 'I will fix that road anyway because it is about lives. It is not about politics.' That is the problem with this government. It's always about the politics. It's not about lives. It's about the politics. I don't care about the politics.

We'll be making that commitment again, and I won't just call on my opponent to match it. I will say, 'Show me the paperwork because we don't trust you, we don't trust this government's commitments, because you are putting Australians' lives at risk.'

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