Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is good to have the opportunity to continue my contribution on the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. As I said in my opening comments last week, it is great under this government to be able to talk about the infrastructure planning and the infrastructure investment that this country has been crying out for for so long. I will mention a couple of the projects that are already underway in my electorate as a result of the commitments that Labor made under AusLink during the election campaign.  AusLink funding does not actually commence until 2009, but on the strength of the funding that will flow next year some work is already happening, thanks to the Queensland government, and planning is underway for other work.

The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Anthony Albanese, was in Mackay a couple of weeks ago to see the work that is already happening as a result of one of the major commitments that we made during the election campaign, which is the duplication of the Bruce Highway south of Mackay, going from Bakers Creek up to the southern entrance to Mackay at the city gates. That is going to be very much welcomed by people in my electorate of Capricornia, which now goes right up to just north of the town of Sarina. The people living in that northern section of Capricornia will benefit greatly from the duplication of that highway up into Mackay, which is the major service centre for the town of Sarina and the communities between Sarina and Mackay. There is so much industrial activity happening around the southern outskirts of Mackay in Paget industrial estate, and that road was getting very congested. So my constituents will be very pleased to see that work is well underway on that important piece of roadwork.

Another project that I am aware is already in the fairly advanced planning stages is the work that I committed to delivering, which is a realignment of the southern approach to Sarina, which covers another section of the Bruce Highway. That stretch of road is quite dangerous; sadly, it has been the site of some fatalities in the past. We have committed $10 million to do the work to realign that road and make the thoroughfare through the main street of Sarina much safer.

Staying up in that northern part of the electorate—and this is not AusLink funding but another commitment that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, made when he was at the Community Cabinet in Mackay—I was very pleased that I was able to organise a meeting between the Prime Minister and representatives of the Road Accident Action Group, which is based in places like Walkerston and Nebo just to the west of Mackay in my electorate. They wanted to see the Prime Minister about the Peak Downs Highway, which runs between Mackay and the mining towns of the Bowen basin—towns like Glenden, Moranbah, Dysart and Middlemount. These are places that are absolutely booming at the moment. The Peak Downs Highway between Mackay and those mining towns is an absolutely vital strategic link. Mackay is where a lot of the heavy engineering and supporting industries are based, it is where the fuel supply is sourced for the mining operations and it is where a lot of the workforce live. So there is an enormous amount of traffic on this road.

The Peak Downs Highway crosses the Eton Range 30 or 40 kilometres west of Mackay and it has a notoriously dangerous stretch of road, so the community have been calling for action on that road for some time now. The Peak Downs Highway is actually a state road, but in recognition of the vital strategic importance that it has for the coal industry and for the growing communities in the Mackay region the Prime Minister listened to the arguments that were made by the representatives from the Road Accident Action Group and committed $1 million, to be matched by the Queensland government, to undertake a major investigation into how to realign the Peak Downs Highway around that stretch of the Eton Range. That is very welcome news, and I know from talking to the Main Roads people in Mackay that that work is already starting. The investigation will be completed in the next 12 to 18 months.

We really need to do something about the crossing of the range, because it has been the site of about 31 truck rollovers in the last two years. That is an amazing figure and underscores the importance of making changes to that road. There have also been two fatalities on that stretch of road in the last year. So I thank the Prime Minister for the time that he gave my constituents at that meeting and the quick response he made in pledging that money to get some work done on realigning that very important road.

In the time that I have left, I want to comment on another issue related to roads, which is that of petrol. There will not be too much driving going on on these new and safer roads without affordable petrol. I want to put on the record that petrol prices in Rockhampton, the main city in the electorate of Capricornia, continue to defy what is happening to petrol prices elsewhere in Queensland. We have seen some significant drops in petrol prices in recent weeks, which are very welcome, in response to movements in the international price, but Rockhampton still routinely and regularly has prices that are 5c, 6c or 7c higher than those in comparable regional centres. For example, last Thursday unleaded petrol was selling in Rockhampton for $1.49 a litre; in Mackay, which is 350 kilometres to the north of us and is a similarly sized city on the Bruce Highway, just like Rockhampton, petrol was selling for $1.42; in Toowoomba, again a provincial city similar in size to Rockhampton, petrol was selling for $1.41; and in Brisbane it was $1.40.

I want to raise that here in the House on behalf of my constituents. We do need to see action on petrol prices, and I am pleased to know that the Rudd government is continuing with its moves in this regard, introducing measures such as formal price monitoring. The government is giving the ACCC the power that it needs to conduct formal monitoring of petrol prices, costs and profits to try and improve transparency, because obviously this is not about what the world oil price is doing. There is an inexplicable discrepancy between the prices in Rockhampton and those in other comparable cities in Queensland. We need to get behind what is happening in the pricing there.

We have also announced the appointment of a petrol commissioner to supervise the new powers of the ACCC. Importantly, the petrol commissioner is going to have powers to scrutinise documents and other information from any participant in the petrol supply chain whenever it is deemed necessary to ensure pricing is consistent with international benchmarks. Again, we are making sure the market mechanisms are in place in Australia, with strong regulations behind them, to stop the discrepancies that we see and that motorists in Rockhampton are suffering from at the moment.

In conclusion, I want to commend this bill to the House. It has two very important measures. One is the extension of the Roads to Recovery program for an additional five years, with additional money committed to that very important program, and also the changes to the definitions of ‘road’ in AusLink which will allow the government—once the opposition stops its blocking tactics in the Senate—to put in place the measures announced in the budget for heavy vehicle productivity and safety initiatives. I look forward to the money rolling out to provide those additional rest stops and parking bays for the truckies who are on our highways and doing a great job keeping the industries going in my electorate of Capricornia.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008 and to outline the many transport challenges in my electorate of Swan. It is great to hear from the member for Capricornia that the Rudd government is meeting their commitments in her electorate, and I will go onto that further in my speech. As members of the House will know, this bill has three components. Each of these components is important and carries my full support.

The bill’s first purpose is to extend the Roads to Recovery program from 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2014. The Roads to Recovery program is an enormously successful and popular program. It was great to hear the member for Braddon last week recognise the success of this Howard-initiated program. He said that it was the bee’s knees. He went on to say it was all about safety and we should not bring politics into it but later in his speech pilloried the Howard government for allocating $15 million in 2004 in his electorate as purely an election stunt. So it is okay for the member for Braddon to first criticise the members of this side of the House for speaking about the inadequacies of the Rudd government and then turn around and do exactly that as to the previous government. I like the way he thinks! He certainly put a smile on my face. The member for Dunkley spoke on the same day about tolls and the inconsistencies of the Victorian state Labor government on this issue. It is fantastic that in the great state of Western Australia road tolls are an issue we do not have to deal with.

The Roads to Recovery scheme was established by the Howard government in November 2000 with the aim of providing a new support program for local roads of $1.2 billion over five years. In January 2004, the coalition government announced a further $1.2 billion over the four years from July 2005 to June 2009. At this point, it became a component of AusLink. AusLink was first established by the former coalition government in 2004 and represents the most significant change since Federation in the way the Commonwealth tackles the national transport task. The national land transport AusLink network is a single integrated network of land transport linkages of strategic national importance which is funded by federal, state and territory governments. The AusLink network is based on national and interregional transport corridors, including connections through urban areas, links to ports and airports, rail, road and internodal connections that together are of critical importance to national and regional economic growth, development and connectivity. Therefore, when the Roads to Recovery fund became part of AusLink it became part of the long-term Howard government transport infrastructure plan for Australia. In the 2005-06 budget, the fund was supplemented with a bonus of $307.5 million to provide an extra boost for councils that year.

This coalition policy has made an enormous contribution to the local community in my electorate of Swan. The Roads to Recovery life-of-program allocation for 2005-06 to 2008-09 for the councils in my electorate has been as follows: the City of Belmont received $921,000; the City of Canning, $2,175,000; the City of Perth, $729,000; and the Town of Victoria Park, $157,000. It was obviously a popular policy with the local councils. Up to 2005, 19 projects were nominated by the City of Belmont; 19 by the City of Canning; 12 by the City of South Perth; and 16 by the Town of Victoria Park. The beauty of this policy is that it decentralises power. It allows local governments to nominate projects they see as necessary and spend the money appropriately. This has never been as important as now, given the ever-centralising tendencies of the federal government. I will take this opportunity to commend the local councils who do an excellent job in implementing this program. With local government responsible for 80 per cent of all roads nationally, this was and will continue to be a vital policy for the health of Australia’s transport system.

The second purpose of this bill is to allow certain funds allocated under Roads to Recovery to be preserved in particular states or territories while arrangements can be made to determine the most appropriate entities to receive the funds. This provision is less important to my electorate on account of the local government entities that administer the scheme. However, I appreciate that in Western Australia seven per cent of Roads to Recovery funds are provided for special projects, being divided up between bridge works and access roads to Indigenous communities. In such cases it has been necessary to preserve these funds while a suitable authority is found to receive and manage their expenditure. The amendments in this bill provide legislative clarity to this longstanding practice.

The third major component of this policy is the provision to amend the definition to put beyond doubt that future funding under AusLink may be applied to rest stops, parking bays and decoupling facilities. This is a necessary amendment and I am happy to support it.

While other components of this bill are clearly admirable, it is important for all members to accept that this is purely a continuation of coalition government policy. It has become increasingly clear that the Rudd government has continued with the me-tooism of the campaign, and I will reflect on that with particular reference to my electorate of Swan. For a government that has continually criticised the Howard government and its achievements in government, it is great to see that it can at least recognise and applaud the Roads to Recovery program by continuing this program.

I would now like to refer to some specific issues that demonstrate the challenges facing my electorate. First I would like to talk about the Great Eastern Highway, which runs through my electorate of Swan. The Great Eastern Highway is a major road linking Perth with Kalgoorlie. It is also the gateway to Perth and is the first experience of many interstate and international visitors to Perth and Western Australia, besides the ashtray exits of our airports. It should be the golden pathway to our beautiful city and state but it has been sadly neglected by the state Labor government for the last eight years. It is the key route for vehicles accessing the wheat belt and the eastern goldfields. It also forms the western-most 595 kilometres of the main road transportation link between Perth and the east coast of Australia.

The road is mostly a federally funded national highway due to its national strategic importance. It is signed as National Highway 94, except for a nine-kilometre stretch between the Great Eastern Highway bypass and the Roe Highway and the 40-kilometre section between Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. It is also signed as Highway 1 between The Causeway and Morrison Road and as State Route 51 between Johnson Street, Guildford, and the Roe Highway.

I have here a press release from the Labor Party dated 29 October 2007. It states:

A Rudd Labor government will put $180 million into the Great Eastern Highway upgrade from Kooyong Road to the Tonkin Highway, a project that will cost $225 million, with the Western Australian government funding the balance.

I will seek leave to table that at the end of my speech. The promise of funding during the election came four days after the Howard government offered a similar package. This road has needed a section upgrade between Kooyong Road and the Tonkin Highway since 2000. It has always been considered a state road but the lack of care and concern by the Gallop and Carpenter governments means that they have ignored previous offers of funding to fix this road and have put at risk the people who use it daily.

The need for the Great Eastern Highway to be updated is highlighted by the figures in the document I hold here on the aircraft and passenger movement increases. This document says that the total aircraft movements in 2003-04 were 78,000 and in 2007-08 were 107,000. The passenger numbers have risen from six million in 2003-04 to over nine million in 2007-08. The road has not seen a cent of the promised money yet. It was obviously a promise made so that the sitting member at the time, Kim Wilkie, would be re-elected. It did not work. Instead, the Rudd government has pursued its favourite policy: delaying tough decisions by commissioning reports and organising committees. The people of my electorate have clearly been let down. I pledged on my first day in parliament to make sure the Rudd government delivered on its promises to the people of Swan. And on this I will continue until the money is forthcoming and the people in Swan benefit from the easing of congestion and a safer road.

Secondly, I would like to highlight the key need for an integrated transport solution network in my electorate. An integrated transport solution involves taking a holistic approach to transport operations in Swan. Kewdale rail freight terminal is a WA transport hub which receives goods from all over Australia by road and rail. Most people like to see their freight transported by the rail network as it takes heavy vehicles off the road. Kewdale is in the seat of Swan and is considered to be the key transport area of WA as there are so many companies and jobs in the area. Transport to the north-west and south-west and into the eastern states all leave from this area. It is an important part of the Western Australian economy and many of my constituents are employed in this industry. However, it becomes increasingly difficult for rail freight companies to profitably operate when they are constantly impeded by bureaucracy.

It is unbelievable that an operator of an interstate train may have to deal with seven safety regulators, three transport accident investigators, 15 pieces of legislation covering occupational health and safety of rail operations and 75 pieces of legislation over environmental management. Even negotiating the road freight bureaucracy can be problematic, with varying state based interpretations of the national heavy vehicle reforms on fatigue management, incomplete rollouts of state approved road networks that can carry the highly efficient B-triple vehicle combinations and the different treatment by states of widths and heights of loads. An integrated transport solution should therefore be negotiated cooperatively at COAG level.

An additional aspect of the integrated transport solution is safe and accessible public transport to free up congested roads and provide an affordable transport option for thousands of local people. I was pleased to see the WA Liberal Party commit to free public transport for the elderly in Western Australia during the recent election campaign. It will make a great deal of difference to the many pensioners in Western Australia. However, as I have communicated to my state colleagues, pensioners across my electorate are currently scared to use public transport on account a of recent crime spree near public transport nodes. I recently spoke in parliament about the disabled woman who was badly beaten at a bus stop near Curtin University in Bentley in my electorate. I also spoke about the Thornlie train line that runs through the heart of my electorate. It is well known in the local area for being the ‘crime line’ after a certain time at night. This message was reinforced on Sunday at a community barbecue in Como organised by local resident Janet Reid, where a recent crime near Canning Bridge station was discussed. We must address this situation, which the Carpenter government allowed to get out of control, and make public transport a truly viable alternative for the people of Western Australia.

I would like to finally concentrate on what can be done in the future to address these issues. I have recently spoken with a senior member of the incoming WA state government about the transport and infrastructure challenges facing my electorate, and the future seems bright. The person in question pointed out that there are vast sums of federal money that the Howard government allocated for projects that are yet to be utilised. Ending this tremendous neglect seems immediately possible. There are also many potential land transport projects that I look forward to working with the new state government on to ensure appropriate funding is available. The proposed new entrance to Perth airport in my electorate could be one of these.

I am sure that with the new Liberal-National government in WA we can look forward to a significant improvement in the transport infrastructure of Western Australia. We will have a government that will practise long-term planning as opposed to the short-term panic policies of the outgoing state Labor government. It will be a government that will produce a feasible state infrastructure strategy. It will be a government that will help foster an integrated transport system for the state and for country areas.

In summation, Australia is facing a growing transport task, with the amount of freight on Australia’s road and rail systems estimated to nearly double by 2020. The demand in our capital cities continues to grow. Perth’s population is expected to double in the next 50 years, and it will need to provide a strong and integrated transport network if it is to cope. The ineptness of the Carpenter government in meeting their basic responsibilities to local people on transport infrastructure is well known and has only made the problem worse. The challenge is limiting our carbon emissions and adding impetus to the need to develop an efficient and effective transport sector.

The Howard government’s record was commendable. The coalition created AusLink in 2004. Under the first AusLink program from 2004-05 to 2008-09, the Howard government provided $15.8 billion in land transport infrastructure funding. For the second AusLink program, the coalition pledged another $16.8 billion over five years for national road and rail projects, totalling around $32 billion, to improve Australia’s road and rail infrastructure. The coalition will press the states to harmonise their laws so that all Australians in the transport sector will be subject to the same regulatory treatment. We support a single national system of recognition for heavy vehicles. The coalition’s policies to build on its achievements in creating a national rail network via the Australian Rail Track Corporation are welcome. Total infrastructure spending in Australia in constant 2007 dollars rose from $21 billion in 1996 to $56 billion in 2007. The Labor Party’s continuation of these policies in this legislation is a testament to the Howard government legacy and I hope they will continue to support them. However, I urge the government to pursue an integrated transport policy and to meet the election policy commitments they made to the people of Swan. I commend the bill to the House. I seek leave to table the document that I referred to.

Leave granted.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. I am proud to be a part of a government that is working with councils to deliver safer roads in my electorate of Wakefield. I have a very good relationship with the councils in my electorate. They form the Wakefield Group of councils, which covers all the councils from Salisbury to Clare. It is good to have feedback from them on many different issues, including roads.

This bill fulfils two important needs. First, it represents an increase in funding for local roads in Wakefield and across the country. Second, it ensures that facilities for heavy vehicles—the trucks and B-doubles that pass through Wakefield each day—will be funded. It goes without saying that roads are an essential part of our economic and social infrastructure. Transport corridors for both industry and commuters are central to our economy and our society.

With this bill, the government will secure the Roads to Recovery program for another five years, delivering $1.75 billion in new money to improve the safety and condition of local roads. Importantly, this legislation ensures that funds can be allocated under the Roads to Recovery program for use in a particular state while the most appropriate entity to receive the funding is being determined. Local roads are critical for efficient and safe freight movements because often the last kilometre from highway to port is a local government controlled road, and that is true across the country. Local governments are responsible for more than three-quarters of all Australian roads. The continuation of the Roads to Recovery program means that local governments can confidently plan for continued improvements of those road networks.

If this bill is passed, councils in my electorate of Wakefield will receive over $2 million for urgent safety upgrades and repairs. That includes almost $1 million for the City of Salisbury alone. As a resident of that great city, I think it is a terrific contribution from the federal government. Local residents are always petitioning me on local roads. One of those roads is Main North Road between Clare and Gawler, a road that is currently being upgraded with federal funds in partnership with the Light Regional Council. Another road that comes to mind is the Kapunda to Tralee road, which is a state road but is a road that residents continually petition me about and one which I continually bring up with the state government. It is a road that, in my opinion, could do with a bit of attention. These moneys from the government are in addition to money received under financial assistance grants, ensuring that the people of Wakefield can have good local roads that do not come at the expense of other parts of the councils’ budgets—the maintenance of decent libraries and parks and other essential services.

As I said, this legislation does more than just fund local roads in places like Wakefield. It also provides for the effective implementation of the heavy vehicle safety and productivity package. This bill amends the definition of a road so that it includes heavy vehicle facilities such as rest stops, parking bays, decoupling facilities and electronic monitoring systems. This change to the definition will enable the government to provide funding of $70 million for these essential transport facilities. Not only will this ensure that our infrastructure is up to scratch, encouraging more economic activity, but it also has great potential to reduce fatalities on our roads.

One in five road deaths involves heavy vehicles, with speed and fatigue often being contributing factors. In 2007, there were over 200 road deaths in Australia involving heavy vehicles. This week the Advertiser reported on a tragic series of accidents under the headline ‘The night of ruined lives’, with the subheadline ‘Four die in 40 minutes’. The picture in this article was of an accident on the Dukes Highway at Ki Ki in the south-east.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is pronounced ‘Kai Kai’.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am, of course, referring to your great electorate of Barker. The graphic image of three trucks smashed to pieces, literally, on the highway in an accident that killed a female car driver and saw a truck driver airlifted to Adelaide in a serious condition just underlines, I think, the risk that having heavy vehicles on our roads poses. It does create a significant risk to drivers. Of course, these are always tragic figures. I do not think they are inevitable. We know from the reduction in road fatalities over the last 20 years that government policy can have a positive effect and that it is possible for governments to make our roads, vehicles and drivers safer. That is something I would certainly support, and I am sure that would be bipartisan.

By providing real facilities for heavy vehicle drivers to reduce the incidence of fatigue, to monitor their travel and to make roads safer, we have a real opportunity to address this problem. I did notice that in the House some members, including the member for Bradfield, had a go at the major retailers in this country, saying that they do not provide facilities and the like. But I happen to know that Woolworths in South Australia has provided facilities for drivers who have to wait to unload their trucks, so I do not think it is entirely fair to say that nothing is being provided: those companies do on occasion try to provide such facilities. I think it is important that through this bill the government can actually provide those facilities so that all drivers can use them, and that will make our roads safer.

Obviously, we are not undertaking this important work alone. Funding for the package is contingent on the passage of the heavy vehicle road user charges and that is a charge that was unanimously endorsed by the Australian Transport Council—the Commonwealth, state and territory transport ministers—in February this year. This legislation basically makes sure that the heavy vehicle industry pays its fair share of the infrastructure costs incurred by government in building and maintaining the roads and facilities that they use. I think it is disappointing that the previous 2007 heavy vehicle charges determination was blocked or disallowed in the other place. This year it is disappointing that, in effect, the coalition in opposition are opposing something that they proposed when in government. I hope that the charge is passed so that we can provide these very important facilities, because we want to see these upgrades rolled out as soon as they can be after 1 January 2009.

In a country as vast as ours, roads are always an infrastructure priority. They certainly are in my electorate of Wakefield, which links the north and the wine regions, particularly the Barossa Valley, with the metropolitan area, Adelaide, and especially the export corridor through to Port Adelaide. These roads are essential to our economic and social wellbeing, and that is why the Rudd government is funding the $564 million Northern Expressway, which runs from Gawler down to Port Wakefield Road and really does create a world-class transport corridor for heavy vehicles and also for commuter traffic moving between Gawler, the Barossa Valley, the port and Adelaide.

This bill provides an increase in funding for roads in the local council areas in Wakefield and across the country. It is a bill that addresses the needs of heavy vehicle drivers and, most importantly, improves the safety of our roads for every Australian motorist. For those reasons, I commend the bill to the House.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Energy and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the short time I have before a division is called in the House of Representatives, I will begin speaking in support of the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. We know that this bill allows for the continuation of the Roads to Recovery program, with funding of $350 million a year to the year 2014. It also enables Roads to Recovery funding to be saved for use in a particular state or territory while arrangements are made to figure out the best way in which this money is to be spent. Finally, it amends the definition of a road to include off-road facilities used by trucks, such as truck bays, so that they are eligible for funding. I commend the government on recognising the importance of the Roads to Recovery program and expanding it.

Today I wish to speak on a broader range of topics under the umbrella of AusLink in my electorate of Canning. In November 2000, the Roads to Recovery program was introduced as a single intervention by the Commonwealth to address the specific problem of local roads reaching the end of their economic life and their replacement being beyond the capacity of local government. In the first four years of this program, the Australian government provided $1.2 billion to local councils for local road improvements, funding in excess of 15,000 projects around Australia. Roads to Recovery has been very much welcomed in Canning, and I would like to outline some of the projects that these moneys have gone into. Up until 2007, the Roads to Recovery program alone brought in $28 million to fix local roads in Canning. Almost $4 million went to the city of Armadale, $4.5 million to the city of Canning, $3 million to the shire of Murray, $3 million to the shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale, $1.2 million to the shire of Waroona and $3½ million to the City of Mandurah. To name a couple of programs, they made the intersection of Lake and Ranford roads safer, improved Armadale Road, improved safety for cyclists on Forrest Road, widened Butcher Street in Mundijong for better visibility and enabled the construction of the east-west link road in Mandurah, a road linking the city with the new train station, which was absolutely needed.

As I said previously, the problem is that local governments in most cases have little or no funding to deal with the upgrade or expansion of the roads in their local government authorities. On the state of the roads in Canning, earlier this year the state’s peak motoring body, the Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia, named three Canning roads as amongst the 10 worst roads in Western Australia, so there is no doubt that the Roads to Recovery funding is vital in Canning. On this list was the Brookton Highway between Roleystone and Karragullen. In December I approached the then Western Australian Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, the Hon. Alannah MacTiernan, about the safety issues of the Brookton Highway. The minister responded by saying that it was not possible to install speed humps and other traffic-calming devices on this section of the road because it was considered to be a primary distributor road. Another road was the 15-kilometre length of the South West Highway between Hamel and Cookernup, and the third was a 12-kilometre stretch of the South West Highway at Byford. These roads were named as the worst roads for several reasons: poor visibility, fading markings, narrowing, deteriorated sealing and bad alignment. This all adds up to dangerous conditions for drivers and a greater likelihood of tragic accidents. At the time, I supported the RAC’s call for the state Labor government to commit to a program bringing these worst roads up to an acceptable standard and, of course, I will urge the new Liberal government in Western Australia to investigate these roads as well.

The Tonkin Highway extension and the Byford bypass are a vital piece of road infrastructure in my electorate. Despite a 12-kilometre stretch of the South West Highway at Byford being named by the RAC as the seventh worst road in Western Australia, the then Carpenter Labor government refused to make a financial commitment for extending the Tonkin Highway to Mundijong, in turn alleviating the increasing burden on the South West Highway. I know the state member for Darling Range, Tony Simpson, has been a strong advocate for this infrastructure, and I am sure that in government he will work hard to secure this financial commitment. Road safety in the region is already a serious concern, with heavy haulage vehicles forced to take Thomas Road to the South West Highway because the Tonkin Highway comes to a dead end. In other words, it is pouring a lot of highway traffic into local roads. Byford is one of Perth’s fastest growing areas and, without forward planning and infrastructure development, locals will be left with an unsafe and unreliable public transport network.

While we are on Byford, I would like to mention the Byford train. Together with Councillor Murphy of the shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale and residents, I persistently called for the previous state government to honour its 2001 election commitment to get the Byford train on track by 2008. This involves extending the existing Armadale line. Stops along a future Byford line have been suggested at Wungong, at Byford and at Cardup, where park ’n’ ride has been proposed.

Despite the previous state government’s promise, until recently the Byford train was belittled as being unrealistic and too expensive by the former minister. I said to the former minister that she needed to deliver on this extension of the railway to Byford. She said how unrealistic and expensive it was until I pointed out a press release that she had issued in 2001 in which she had promised to deliver it by 2008. It had not even been started, so she got it on the radar and said she would have a look at it.

We have now got to the point where a lack of road and rail infrastructure is strangling development in the south-eastern corridor. The state Labor government was so fixated on constructing the Perth-Mandurah rail link that it neglected to look at the bigger picture of public transport in the south-eastern corridor. Considering the rising cost of petrol, it is important that we look at alternative means of transportation and improving public transport—that actually has to be a priority. We will be doing our best with the new coalition government in Western Australia to get this extension.

The Pinjarra bypass, with more than 10,000 vehicle movements, including 500 haulage vehicles a day through the main street of Pinjarra, has long been on the cards. The $22 million bypass is in the shire of Murray and sees a dual carriageway deviation around the busy township. The proposed stage 1 runs from the South Western Highway south of Pinjarra to the Pinjarra-Williams Road, connecting at a T-junction. The bypass will reduce the volume of traffic forced to travel through the town on the South Western Highway, in particular the huge number of B-double trucks and heavy haulage vehicles forced to travel down the main street and past two schools.

The expansion of the mining activities of Boddington, the expansion of the Wagerup refinery and the continued development of the Peel region are putting pressure on the existing infrastructure. The freight demands on this region are only going to increase, and the current developments in the shire of Murray could see a population increase of almost 20,000, meaning that not only are there more trucks on the road but a lot more cars.

In 2006, the Department of Transport and Regional Services was forced to rank the shire of Murray’s application for AusLink funding for the same project as a low priority. Why? When the then state government were asked if they would support it in matching funding through the AusLink strategic roads funding program they said, ‘We’re happy to support it but the funds will have to come from the Perth to Bunbury highway’. In other words, they were not really serious about putting money into the bypass because they would have had to rip it out of the Perth to Bunbury highway. That is why DOTARS had put it as a low priority—the state government were not serious.

Main Roads has conducted assessments into the project; however, no construction funds are currently allocated in state or federal budgets. Last year the coalition promised $10 million towards the Pinjarra bypass and there were indications that the state government would match it. In fact, I had a letter from Alannah MacTiernan, the state minister, saying if it got federal funds she would match them. However, to date the Rudd government has shown no indication of acting on the coalition’s initiative. The member for Murray-Wellington, Murray Cowper, is committed to seeing this project through, and I trust that funding for the highway will be high on the new government’s agenda.

I am pleased to say there is real progress being made on the new Perth-Bunbury highway. It is a project that I am very proud of having been associated with. I know the member for O’Connor, when speaking on this bill yesterday, noted the work of both me and my colleague the former member for Forrest in securing funding for this project. I know that the member for Forrest, who is in the chamber, is also a passionate supporter of the Perth to Bunbury highway because Bunbury is in her electorate, which would benefit very much from this magnificent piece of road infrastructure.

The 70-kilometre dual carriageway starting at the current south-eastern end of the Kwinana Freeway at Safety Bay Road is to join the Old Coast Road near Lake Clifton. It is on track to be open to motorists well before the December 2009 deadline, possibly for Easter but certainly by June. Around 50,000 motorists travel down to south-western Western Australia for Easter, so it would be pretty good if we could have it open by then, because of the major traffic snarls and the dangerous road conditions that the Easter weekend brings.

It is not often that state managed projects are completed on time. I would like to say that on this occasion it is largely as a result of the former coalition putting boundaries around the then state Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, Alannah MacTiernan. Together with the strong partnership of the Southern Gateway Alliance, the main reason for the highway being ahead of schedule is the conditions that the federal government set into the AusLink funding agreement. As the member for O’Connor pointed out, and I reconfirm it, we as a government said that we would not support any AusLink funding going into Western Australia unless the minister committed to a 2006 start date and a 2009 completion date, because she had been fooling around with the date for years and years. The $170 million was conditional on this agreement, and she did begin the road in 2006. I stood at the end of the Kwinana Freeway with silver shovels along with the then Premier, Alan Carpenter, and dug a couple of holes in the ground. That got her out of the 2006 commitment.

With the Labor government’s record on major projects running late and over budget, the coalition’s agreement was designed with Peel motorists in mind so they could have some certainty of this highway finishing by the expected time. Progress is extremely clear, as you can see when you drive along the alignment, and the construction of the Murray Bridge, crossing Pinjarra Road and the Murray River at North Yunderup, commenced last May. The 272-metre long bridge is being built in 18 stages, and it is the biggest structure in the biggest single road project in Western Australia’s history. So it is a massive piece of road infrastructure and it is very much needed for the region. I am very pleased that we are actually getting it built on time and, I understand, on budget.

The Mandurah Entrance Road—or road A, as it is commonly known—is another project that is high on the priority list for Mandurah motorists. The state government originally pulled the Mandurah Entrance Road off the Perth to Bunbury highway project as a way to reduce costs. This was often done—they did the same on the Tonkin Highway extension and Corfield Road. Now this road is imperative, because unless road A is constructed Mandurah will be isolated. It is estimated to cost $130 million. Road A comes off the Perth to Bunbury highway south of Paganoni Road and joins the rail alignment, goes under the bridge at Gordon Road and intersects Fremantle Road adjacent to the rail station in Mandurah. When the Gordon Road bridge was built over the rail line it was built to accommodate the required four-lane road.

The timing of this road is now becoming an issue with the completion of the Perth to Bunbury highway approaching. Early construction would mean that freeway traffic would not have to disperse onto local roads, particularly Gordon Road, past the schools on Lakes Road and past the hospital, allied health services and accommodation for the aged in the area. Main Roads needs to work out a time frame for this project, but more and more it is looking unlikely it will commence before the highway opens, which is very sad because it is going to take a lot more to complete once the contractors leave the Perth to Bunbury highway.

In October last year the then opposition spokesman for transport, Martin Ferguson, said, ‘$130 million for the Mandurah Entrance Road will be delivered with the new Perth to Bunbury highway project and funded fifty-fifty by federal and state Labor governments.’ Well, we have a federal Labor government but we do not have a state Labor government anymore, but we would like it delivered, because the then shadow minister said that he would deliver the federal government’s component, should they be the government. I will keep them to that promise, I can assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The bridges in Mandurah are also a very important consideration in this AusLink funding. The traffic congestion in Mandurah has got to such levels that existing bridges over the canals and estuaries are being pushed to breaking point. The Old Mandurah Traffic Bridge, which is an icon in the seaside township, is in desperate need of upgrading. Should the upgrades not be made by 2013, the city may be forced to close this bridge, which would put even more pressure on the Estuary Bridge. Just to put this in context, the old Mandurah bridge is made out of timber supports and has been refurbished many times. However, it is in such a state now that it is almost getting to the point of being dangerous.

The City of Mandurah is in discussions on the early implementation of an automated switching system for the three traffic lanes on the Estuary Bridge, because it is certainly a bridge that helps access to the city. The city has raised the option of converting the existing lanes on the Estuary Bridge from north to south in peak periods on weekdays, which would relieve pressure on the old traffic bridge.

Recently the Mayor of the City of Mandurah, Mayor Creevey, said:

With the increasing population in the City’s southern areas, our major concern is that if the region ever faced a major emergency the traffic-carrying capacity of the bridge could be a ‘life or death’ matter.

Statistics from 2003 show that whilst the opening of the Perth to Bunbury highway would relieve some traffic off the Mandurah bridges it would only be around 20 per cent, indicating that the majority of truck movements are local. The city is desperate to have the duplication of the Estuary Bridge brought forward. To explain very clearly, the Estuary Bridge is the bridge out of town which has to be reconfigured every morning and afternoon to allow a single lane one way and a dual carriageway the other way to get the traffic through at peak periods. The bridge needs to be duplicated. The Peel region is one of the fastest growing areas in Western Australia, and the situation will continue to be dangerous if the duplication does not happen.

Interestingly, the old wooden Mandurah bridge was handed to the City of Mandurah in a benevolent way by a previous state government’s Main Roads, which said, ‘It’s your responsibility now.’ But it is such a major cost pressure to refurbish it that the City of Mandurah, which is at the maximum of its borrowings, cannot afford to do this. Unless they get help from the federal and state governments, this bridge will have to be closed because it is gradually decaying. What I am suggesting, and I will be approaching both the City of Mandurah and the new transport minister in Western Australia over this, is that this bridge now be put back into the care of the state government and Main Roads WA because no local or government authority can afford in any way to take on the responsibility of rebuilding or refurbishing such a major piece of infrastructure. Their ability to raise funds to do something like this is totally out of the realms of possibility, and they do need help with this.

Finally, I wish to mention the Dwellingup bypass. The shire of Murray has looked at the possibility of a Dwellingup bypass. As I mentioned earlier, there is a need to upgrade the infrastructure in this area to take into account the impact of the Boddington Gold Mine and the expansion of the Wagerup refinery. Interestingly, the Boddington Gold Mine will be a lot more on my radar because, under the redistribution in Western Australia, there is a good chance that I might end up with the shire of Boddington as part of the Canning electorate and I am sure they will be asking me for help on this issue. Whilst it has been deemed that the Pinjarra bypass may not be viable, upgrades to the Pinjarra-Williams Road between Pinjarra and Dwellingup is becoming more important, particularly as huge trucks will now be transporting gold ore down to the port of Bunbury. On a single-lane and hilly road with very few bypasses this is going to become a major traffic hazard and safety issue. I have already written to the previous minister, Alannah MacTiernan, about upgrades of this road or rerouting trucks so that they are taken away from the rural traffic on this very small rural road and I got a rejection. That is very disappointing. I will be taking it all up again with the new state government and looking at the assistance of this federal program for infrastructure, the new AusLink program. It will be an enormous amount of money over the years to 2014.

I will also be making sure that the new member of state parliament, Mr Grylls from the National Party, realises that under the royalties for regions proposal—and Dwellingup is a region in Western Australia—there is an opportunity for some of the $650 million that he is talking about to go into some of these rural roads that would not necessarily be funded out of ongoing programs. This program generated by the coalition government is a good one, and I support its intention.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom. I will just road-test my voice and get it back gradually. I was in the chamber last week when you were making your contribution to this bill. Can I just say on the record that I found your presentation extremely poetic, with a lot of dramatic flair. I knew then that I could not emulate that kind of narrative when talking about roads.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I share the same birthday as Shakespeare.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure you do. The AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008 currently before us demonstrates, without doubt, the Rudd Labor government’s commitment to improving road safety as well as the quality of our local roads and local road infrastructure. Road safety and the adequacy of local road infrastructure to meet residential and transport needs are two issues which are never far from the minds of Australian motorists or from the minds of the people in my electorate of Calwell, which covers much of Melbourne’s outer metropolitan north-west region. Road upgrades and improvements to local road safety continue to feature as strong electorate concerns.

Calwell is home to some of Melbourne’s strongest growth corridors, where there has literally been an explosion in new housing developments. Some of those high-growth corridors include Craigieburn, in my electorate, and Mount Ridley, which is experiencing a significant and phenomenal growth rate. This population growth means that there are more motorists on our local roads and more pressures in terms of road use, convenience and minimising traffic congestion. Unlike the inner suburbs of Melbourne, where public transport is more likely to be an option for those not wishing to drive, in Calwell everyday activities such as dropping the kids off at school, going to the shops and getting to work nearly always require the use of a car, making these pressures on the roads in my electorate all the more acute.

We also have regional areas where local roads were built with only a small local population in mind but which today are burdened by the daily thoroughfare of local commuters going into and out of the city. Bulla Road, in the still tiny town of Bulla in my electorate, runs through to the satellite suburb of Sunbury and is one such example of a road where many local residents are forced on a daily basis to battle the delays, inconveniences and frustration of peak-hour traffic. I can attest to that frustration because I have been caught at that time as I moved through my electorate. It is indeed a horrendous situation for the locals and for people who wish to use Bulla Road to come in and out of Sunbury.

Calwell is also home to Melbourne airport and a number of freight and export companies that rely on the airport to keep their businesses going, as well as being a centre for manufacturing in Victoria. The Hume Highway is one of the main arterial roads running from Sydney to Melbourne and it cuts a direct path right through my electorate. This means that heavy vehicles are frequently on our local roads. We often talk about the use by heavy vehicles of the Hume Highway. I would say that on a daily basis there are thousands on that road that often find ways to meander through my electorate onto smaller roads, creating pressures and undue concerns for the people who live there.

Keeping on top of the many challenges that these issues pose in terms of road safety and the adequacy of our local road infrastructure in Calwell is crucial. This is why the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008, which I speak to today, is a very important bill. The bill contains two main provisions. The first is to amend the definition of ‘road’ in the AusLink (National Land Transport) Act 2005 to allow for the funding of heavy vehicle facilities like off-road rest stops and heavy vehicle bays. In particular, this bill seeks to expand the current definition of a road to include ‘a facility off the road used by heavy vehicles in connection with travel on the road’. This includes off-road rest stops, heavy vehicle bays, weigh stations and decoupling areas but not commercial developments such as food or fuel outlets or motels.

To build more off-road facilities designed to accommodate heavy vehicles, the government has committed $70 million under its Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program announced by the Treasurer in the last budget. In addition to funding off-road facilities, the program also makes provision for trialling new technologies that electronically monitor a truck driver’s work hours and vehicle speed, as well as road capacity enhancements that will enable high-productivity vehicles to use more of the road network. These measures are designed to tackle driver fatigue and improve road safety—measures that all motorists will welcome, including those living in my electorate of Calwell.

The importance of these measures takes on added weight when it is remembered that there were over 200 road deaths on Australian roads involving heavy vehicles last year alone, with speed and fatigue often being key contributing factors. Yet, despite this emphasis on improving road safety, the opposition seems determined to block these important measures in the Senate. Sadly, it seems that the safety of Australian motorists comes a distant second to the recalcitrance of an out of touch opposition.

The funding allocated under the government’s Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program will be offset by an increase in the heavy vehicle road user charge. Only last June, the former transport minister and now Leader of the Nationals, Mr Warren Truss, was advocating just such an increase to the heavy vehicle road-user charge. Yet the opposition has now decided to do a backflip on this issue, blocking the passage of this charge in the Senate in much the same way that it is doing with a raft of other legislation, such as the government’s plans to invest in Australia’s ailing public dental healthcare system, which was left to badly deteriorate under 11 years of the Howard government. Obstructionism for its own sake is not what the Australian public expect of a credible opposition, and they certainly deserve better.

The second provision of this bill is to extend the life of the Roads to Recovery program for another five years through to 30 June 2014. Under the current act, this program is due to end on 30 June 2009. This extension will see the Rudd government commit a record $1.75 billion over the next five years to help improve local roads around Australia. In essence, the Roads to Recovery program provides additional funding to local government for improvements to both urban and rural roads, with grants being paid directly to local councils to help upgrade and improve local road infrastructure. This funding serves to supplement the money local councils spend on roads.

This financial year, Hume City Council, whose borders coincide identically with those of my electorate of Calwell, received just under $780,000 under the government’s Roads to Recovery program. This is on top of the $9.8 million that the Rudd government is providing to Hume City Council in financial assistance grants over the coming financial year to fund improvements to roads and services within the city of Hume and, by extension, within my electorate of Calwell. The Roads to Recovery program is an important source of funding when it comes to improving local road infrastructure and road safety for local residents living in Craigieburn, Sunbury, Roxburgh Park, Greenvale, Tullamarine, Broadmeadows and across the breadth of my electorate. The five-year extension to this program that is contained within this bill not only ensures that this important source of Commonwealth funding will continue to be made available for the improvement of our local roads in Calwell; it also provides local councils like that of Hume with the certainty they need to be able to plan ahead for road upgrades and safety improvements.

Another source of AusLink funding through which the Rudd government has continued to help improve road safety in Calwell is the federal Black Spot Program. Just last month I had the pleasure of announcing an additional $393,000 in Commonwealth funds to fix three dangerous black spots in my electorate. Under the latest round of accident black spot funding, the Rudd government will provide $205,000 to install speed humps and associated signs, remove the traffic island at Edmund Street, paint a centre line, provide indented roadside parking and upgrade street lighting on King Street between Barry Road and Terang Street in Dallas. In the five-year period to 2006, there have been four accidents on King Street causing injury along this stretch of road, with three of those crashes involving parked cars and one involving a turning related incident. All occurred at night, with traffic congestion and speed significant contributing factors.

I also announced $105,000 in funding to install traffic lights, with pedestrian crossings, at Station Street and Evans Street in Sunbury. In the same five-year period to 2006, there were seven accidents causing injury at this intersection, with the majority of those the result of turning related incidents. And an additional $83,000 has also been committed to fund the installation of traffic lights, with pedestrian crossings, where David Munroe Drive intersects with Stainsby Crescent and the shopping centre access road in Roxburgh Park—one of the high growth suburbs I mentioned earlier. There were injuries from a total of 10 crashes at this intersection over the five-year period to 2006. All were again turning related accidents, which, as any local resident will tell you, are inevitable given the blind corners involved at this intersection.

In relation to the improvements at Roxburgh Park, I would like to briefly mention the efforts of a Roxburgh Park resident and a constituent of mine, Mr Antonio Taranto, who took it upon himself to lobby the council and the government for a period of about four years to draw attention to the need to do something about the dangers associated with this road close to his home. Antonio is in his 70s and retired but decided that he had to make it his job to secure the safety of his neighbourhood. He spent those years putting a petition together. He was able to collect in excess of 400 signatures from local residents calling for traffic lights to be installed at the intersection of David Munroe Drive and Stainsby Crescent. His efforts, I can say, made all the difference. I want to take this opportunity to recognise him because he did an amazing job. He documented his campaign in such a way that it is almost a historical document or even a proforma for anybody on how to lobby local, state and federal governments in order to achieve an outcome. Antonio certainly did, and I had the great pleasure of being able to visit him at home and tell him that his mission had finally been achieved.

All three road safety upgrades in Dallas, Sunbury and Roxburgh Park will be funded under, and made possible by, the federal government’s Black Spot Program. Extending the government’s Roads to Recovery program for another five years and continuing to invest in improvements to local road infrastructure will be welcomed by local residents and motorists not just across my electorate but across Australia.

The same can be said about plans to improve local road safety by building additional heavy vehicle facilities like off-road rest stops and heavy vehicle bays. Both are key tenets of the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008, which demonstrates this government’s commitment to improving road safety as well as the quality of our local roads and local road infrastructure. It is for these reasons that I support this bill and commend it to the House.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008 because it is very important to my electorate and the sorts of things that I want to achieve as a member of parliament. In fact, my first speech after my maiden speech was about road infrastructure and the need for the improvement of road infrastructure in rural areas. I have certainly kept up speaking on that matter wherever I am because it is a very important issue to my electorate of Barker.

As Deputy Speaker Sidebottom would remember, together we were on an agriculture and regional services committee of this parliament. I can remember hearing from the then President of the Australian Local Government Association, John Ross. I know him well because he actually happens to be a councillor on my local government council, the Tatiara council. He raised the issue of the need for greater funding for rural roads, especially local government roads. He showed us quite clearly that if we kept up the present rate of funding our roads would only get worse because we were not spending enough.

The Howard government responded to that report with the Roads to Recovery program. I feel proud that together, Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, we were part of that happening. It has been a great program for all the roads in local government areas in this country. It has certainly helped their funding for roads. In fact, in South Australia we got the best deal of the lot, probably because we were not getting such a good deal in other areas. Our funding increased by 118 per cent for every council in South Australia. I know the Australian average was about 70 per cent, which, in any terms, is still a very substantial increase in funding for roads. I was in local government for 11 years before coming to this place. When I talk to my local council people, they are very thankful for that program and I am pleased to say that, as part of this legislation, we will be guaranteeing that funding for another five years.

There are two main purposes to the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. The first is to change the definition of ‘road’ in the Auslink (National Land Transport) Act 2005 to allow for the funding of heavy vehicle facilities such as off-road rest stops. I think it is very important that we do that. The second purpose is to allow the Roads to Recovery program to be extended for another five years to 2014. That will certainly help planning for local government areas all around Australia.

For those of us with rural electorates, especially large rural electorates as in the case of Barker, AusLink is a critical program. My electorate is so large that it is about 10 per cent larger than Tasmania. You can imagine the roads we have in that electorate and many constituents travel large distances on rural and regional roads as they go about their business and family duties. Also this has critical safety implications for the heavy vehicle industry. This is of significant economic importance in Barker with a number of major heavy vehicle transport firms based throughout the electorate. It also has safety implications for other vehicles on the road. We have large transport hubs in the Mount Gambier area and Murray Bridge, in the Riverland and Bordertown. The AusLink national network comes right into my electorate. I have the privilege of travelling on that network nearly every day that I go to my office or around my electorate. It is a very important connecting corridor in my electorate, as it is in many other electorates around Australia.

AusLink focuses the Australian government’s future investment in land transport infrastructure by providing a strategic framework for the planning and funding of Australia’s key roads and railways to meet long-term economic and social needs. In the Roads to Recovery program element of AusLink, grants are paid directly to councils if there is a council for the relevant area. Councils receive those funds and the money is intended to supplement council road spending. One of the wonderful records of the Roads to Recovery program is that something like $375 million a year, if my memory serves me correctly, is administered by two public services. I think it is quite incredible that two public servants can administer that amount of money. We have given it to the local governments and they make the decisions. I have always been a great believer of local people making, as best they can, decisions for their local area because they know it better than we here in Canberra. So that has been a great part of the hugely efficient Roads to Recovery program—that that spending has had just two public servants to administer it. Funding is also applied to unincorporated areas—that is, where there is no local council such as in the area north of the Riverland in my electorate. I have a small part of that area. The rest of the unincorporated roads in South Australia are, I believe, in the electorate of Grey—and, of course, that is a pretty large electorate.

The Howard government established the Roads to Recovery program in 2000, and in July 2005 the program became part of AusLink. AusLink was a successful program under the Howard government, and the funding was $2.24 billion, of which $304 million was for Roads to Recovery. So I correct my earlier statement that it was $375 million. The actual figure in the last year was $304 million. This bill extends the Roads to Recovery program funding from 30 June 2009 until 30 June 2014. I suspect that, when we come nearer to 2014, we will be doing the same thing, because of the absolute necessity for this program.

The benefits of the Roads to Recovery program, particularly for local government with its responsibilities for some 800,000 kilometres of roads across our country, are well acknowledged and the extension of the program is well justified. Just last week, on 16 September, four people died in 40 minutes of horror in three separate accidents on South Australian roads. I note that the member for Wakefield referred to this in his contribution to the parliament as well. One of those horrific deaths was in Ki Ki, in my electorate, on the Dukes Highway. Two other people were seriously injured in that accident. It was a black day indeed on South Australian roads, and it reminds us of the responsibility we as members of parliament bear in road safety funding. I make the point because it was the Keating government, I think, that in error got rid of the black spot funding, and the Howard government restored that black spot funding. It has been so well recognised that our state government—and, I suspect, other state governments—have copied the Black Spot Program, even using the same name. It shows the necessity of that funding.

Successes of AusLink funding in my electorate include projects such as the $205 million for the Sturt Highway, a very important road because it services the Barossa and the Riverland and, of course, is the main road from Adelaide to Sydney. In 2003—I did not actually represent the area then; it was in the seat of Wakefield at the time—the Sturt Highway featured in the 10 most dangerous stretches of highway in Australia at that time, with 25 casualty crashes and four deaths. So $205 million committed by the Howard government to the Sturt Highway has gone a long way towards fixing up some of the problems that we had occurring on that road due to poor infrastructure.

We also spent enormous amounts on the Dukes Highway, on the South Australian side of the main road from Adelaide to Melbourne. I think we probably spent more money on the Dukes Highway than on any other road in South Australia, certainly in recent times. It is the most important road for South Australians, either for their local transport or for their interstate transport. It certainly has the highest traffic. I was able to get a grant of $15 million to spend on 17 kilometres of road from Bordertown to the Victorian border because the road infrastructure had deteriorated quite badly. It is now the best part of the Dukes Highway.

I also make the point that, because the road was so bad, the state government reduced the speed limit from 110 to 100 kilometres an hour, which we all thought was fair enough because the road had deteriorated, but now that it has been fixed up, and is the best part of the whole Dukes Highway from Adelaide to the Victorian border—some 250 kilometres, I would say, at a guess—they have kept that speed limit at 100 kilometres an hour, whereas on the rest of the Dukes Highway it is 110 kilometres an hour. And guess where they put the police radars. It is on that stretch where you would expect to be travelling at 110 but they have kept the limit at 100 kilometres an hour. That is why some people get cynical about revenue raising in the name of safety, because this is the safest part of the road and yet it has the lower speed limit.

So there has been a lot of money spent on road infrastructure already in my electorate, but there is a deal more to be done. Other critical needs include a bypass of Renmark—at the moment all the heavy traffic passes through the middle of Renmark, and I do not think that is a very satisfactory position—and the Truro bypass. Unfortunately, as a result of timing and running out of funding the state government has decided it cannot afford to do the Truro bypass. We need to fund the Penola bypass; the Murray Bridge to Karoonda road, which is quite shocking at times; long sections of the Mallee Highway; sections of the road from Bordertown to Loxton; and the Barossa Valley Way. That is very important for our tourism, not just for transport. Under AusLink, I have already obtained the funding for the Millicent bypass and the Mount Gambier Worrolong Road bypass and many others. Whilst there were some people on Worrolong Road that were concerned about having that as a bypass, we actually made it a better road and the trucks were using it as a bypass anyway, so this was really fixing up what was an existing position.

The Penola bypass is a major project and a critical safety issue for the town of Penola. The safety of pedestrians and vehicular traffic in Church Street, Penola, due to existing and increasing volumes of heavy traffic using the road, has been an issue of concern for the entire Penola community for some years. Current figures indicate that there are approximately 550 heavy transport vehicle movements through the Penola township per day, and that will significantly increase when the blue gum transportation traffic comes online.

I might add that Penola is where the Mary MacKillop Interpretive Centre and the Tenison Woods MacKillop Schoolhouse are located, and these bring many tourists into the town. I would like to think that we could rely less on the intervention of the blessed Mary MacKillop to assure the safety of tourists and residents in Penola and more on the government to intervene and fund the much-needed bypass. On 22 February 2008, I wrote to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government about funding for the Penola bypass, but I have not yet received a reply. I note that the minister did actually attend a function at the nearby Coonawarra race day a couple of weeks before that, so he is well aware of the issue. It would be nice to actually get a reply from the minister to show that he has some real concern about a dangerous position.

Long-distance truck driving in Australia remains a dangerous occupation. Stressful work schedules and fatigue in the long-haul trucking industry have been well documented. Back in 2000 a report found that, compared to the UK and the USA, Australians were twice as likely to die in a crash involving a heavy vehicle. The Howard government legislated, and that has gone a long way to fixing that. I know that in my electorate the industry itself has cleaned up its act in ensuring the safety of its drivers. The trucking industry over the past five years has had about a 22 per cent decrease in fatal crashes for articulated trucks. So, while one death is one too many, there certainly has been a rate of improvement in conjunction with high productivity in the industry.

Nonetheless, long-haul driving is a tiring job and rest areas play an important role in helping all drivers manage their fatigue on the road. Roadside rest areas provide opportunities for heavy vehicle drivers to take rest breaks during work periods and to check their loads. Rest areas are a vital part of the road infrastructure on rural roads. The Australian Trucking Association have called for heavy vehicle rest areas on key interstate routes to be given a high funding priority, and I support this. Whilst they have nominated 18 priority rest areas for funding, regrettably there are none in my electorate. I can assure them there are plenty of areas where there should be, although I note they have left it open in South Australia to submit more. There is also plenty of scope for the state Labor government to match the funding. In fact, it was the South Australian Road Transport Association Executive Director, Steve Shearer, who recently pointed out that the Australian national highway network should have 22,000 rest areas for heavy vehicle drivers instead of the current 986.

This bill will give the government the legal power to fund truck rest areas under its Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program and it will also open the way for the government to provide more money for rest areas under its AusLink land transport program in the years to come. Unfathomably, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has said that the funding of rest stops is contingent on the passage of previously defeated bills which imposed higher registration costs on heavy vehicles and which would have bankrupted small owner-driver operations. While I am pleased that there is nothing in this bill that reflects that contingency, I recall saying in this place earlier this year that heavy vehicle operators already pay significant registration charges, which vary by truck type and varying axle loads, and diesel fuel excise.

Australia’s national freight load is expected to double by 2015—and let me remind the House that is only seven years away—and road transport’s share of this compared with rail is expected to increase. It follows then that it is important to keep the Australian trucking sector cost efficient to support Australian industry’s international competitiveness. Many truck drivers in my electorate are small business owner-operators who have taken out substantial mortgages so they can cover the cost of their vehicles, which need replacing every five years or so. Holding safety to ransom, as the minister would have done by linking funding for rest stops to increased registration charges, is not reflective of a responsible government.

In conclusion, I remind the Rudd Labor government that rural and regional Australians are already hurting from this government’s abolition of funding programs, to the tune of $1 billion, and that these are people who are not fooled by spin. Our country’s truck drivers deserve safety and support with no strings attached, and rural and regional Australians who have little or no public transport options deserve a decent road system. For this reason I commend the bill to the House.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As many before me have said in this debate on the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008, the bill is giving an ongoing commitment to road safety and local road infrastructure. The bill amends the definition of a road so that it includes heavy vehicle facilities such as rest stops, parking bays, decoupling facilities and electronic monitoring systems, which are a modern phenomena in road transport. This will enable the government to provide funding for these facilities under the $70 million Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity package, which I understand has been worked through with players in the trucking industry. It will fund areas, such as trials of technologies that electronically monitor a truck driver’s work hours and vehicle speed, along with rest stops for drivers. It will also include bridge-strengthening projects and upgrades to linkages between existing AusLink freight routes, enabling access to those roads by more productive heavy vehicles. Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, you would know some of those roads in Tasmania and that all those things are relevant to the trucking industry of our state. Driver fatigue is a major concern affecting all categories of road users; therefore this bill should contribute to a reduction in driver fatigue and hence accidents involving heavy vehicles.

The other part of the bill is for the Roads to Recovery program, which provides much-needed funding to local councils around Australia so they can make urgent repairs and provide upgrades to their roads. This will allow for better management of the funding list which sets out all funding recipients in Australia and the amount they receive and which is currently not able to be amended except in very limited circumstances. So the heavy vehicle safety program links closely with the Roads to Recovery program, making it even more important as much of the heavy traffic currently on our roads is slowed by the state of those roads off the national highway and puts pressure on their condition.

I understand the current funding ceases on 30 June 2009, but the current government has decided to continue this funding for the period 2009 to 2014. As we all know, local governments are responsible for more than three-quarters of all Australian roads. I understand that is over 810,000 kilometres. That is a lot of road. This gives them an opportunity to plan for the future for the continued improvement of the road network. The increase in funding will add another $50 million to the program, from $300 million to $350 million under the government’s commitment to increase our investment.

The features of this program are: grants are paid directly to councils, if there is a council in the relevant area; all councils receive funds; the money is intended to supplement not substitute the council’s spending on roads—and we know that there is no council in Australia that would ever do that, and, of course, they are not supposed to—councils nominate the projects to be funded. It also applies to unincorporated areas—that is, where there is no local council.

Tasmania knows how important this program is. Many small areas have been left off the map over the years. The one area that comes to mind is the Woodsdale Road, which passes the Woodsdale Hall and the old schoolhouse there—which now is playing a very important role.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Previously, I was talking about small areas being left off the map in road funding at times over the years. One such area in the electorate of Lyons is the Woodsdale Road. This passes the Woodsdale Hall and the old schoolhouse, which is now playing a great role in rejuvenating the region as an historical centre and museum. The maintenance of this road was taken over by the council in return for the Mud Walls Road being done up by the state government, and it has breathed new life into the Woodsdale-Levendale area. We had to put together some interesting funding arrangements to achieve that. Senator Watson, who retired at the last election—he was a Liberal senator for Tasmania over a long period of time—and the state member for Lyons, Michael Polley, helped achieve those goals, but it was difficult to work out an arrangement for that funding.

I know there are sure to be other roads that have been left off the map and remain unsealed because of changing circumstances, and we need road funding to achieve those things. This funding fits into those needs very well and assists us to do that. Lorinna Road, in the Kentish municipality, is another prime target for Roads to Recovery funding. For decades that road has been on a high cliff; it has been there for many decades and causes great difficulties in being there. There has been an estimate of something like $40 million to rectify the problem. So I think Roads to Recovery will have a role to play in doing up River Road and having that become the main road into the Lorinna Valley.

Black spot funding has achieved much, but we need to improve the criteria of how we make judgements about what is a black spot. The number of deaths on a certain stretch of road should not be the only reason to fix a very dangerous section of road. There is a need for more community input. I know that local government does have a say and this is good for the council, the community and the local economy, as well as being good for the safety and wellbeing of everybody who travels on those roads. I guess many of us write many letters seeking changes to roads in our local areas without, at times, much success. To get those ideas to filter through to the decision-makers is sometimes a very slow and tedious process. Funding of infrastructure was left off the agenda in the Howard days. Thank God, the Rudd government has got the Infrastructure Australia fund together to fund roads, ports and airports. With road funding, of course, we can build the long-term viability of the country.

I am particularly keen on this bill, which deals with safety and local roads infrastructure in northern Lyons, and I welcome the promise of $3.1 million towards the $6.2 million upgrade of the Illawarra Road link at Longford. My aunt—my mother’s sister—died, much too early, on a particularly dangerous T intersection that has changed very little over the years, and there continues to be too many accidents and deaths at this intersection. It has never been fixed, the problem being that the national highway, which runs from Hobart to Launceston, is funded to go into Launceston. A few kilometres before that is the turn off on the Illawarra link road, so people use the link into Launceston—if that is their destination—and go out through Prospect on to the north-west and down to the ports, Devonport and Burnie. The truckies that are heading to the ports of Devonport or Burnie, and to the ferries there, use the Illawarra Road as a shortcut from the Midlands Highway to the north-west coast. I have never been able to convince anybody that this piece of state highway needs to become part of the national highway. It needs to be upgraded to that effect so that we can change this difficult and dangerous situation.

This road was not designed to take such heavy traffic. The junction at Longford has been the scene of many crashes, including, as I mentioned, that of my aunt. The pledge to upgrade this link road is welcomed and I hope that at some point it may be reclassified as part of the national highway with a proper intersection works to acknowledge the amount of traffic that uses it.

With this strong commitment to fund infrastructure projects, this government has allowed regional areas—in this case, Tasmania—to upgrade a sadly lacking road network, at all levels of government. The local mayors of southern Tasmania took up the fight to upgrade the entrance to Hobart and were able to convince the Labor Party to take this on board. We saw the opportunities provided by $131 million towards the $164 million Brighton bypass and the upgrade of the East Derwent Highway. The improvements are massive and will help the state provide, possibly for the first time, an integrated transport package. The state of Tasmania really needs to put together a proper integrated transport strategy that incorporates all levels of transport. It is one of the last pieces of infrastructure that we need to put together, which was started by the late Premier Jim Bacon.

As well as this, there is $56 million provided specifically towards the $79 million Brighton transport hub, which is at the end of my electorate as you go into Hobart where we think the railway will now come to an end, instead of rattling down the river to Hobart. This will become a major hub which will bypass the township of Brighton, in the southern part of the Lyons electorate, and will also bypass a busy shopping complex and a primary school, which is just around the corner from the national highway. There is also $11 million towards a $14 million upgrade of the Bridgewater Bridge. There is $24 million for rail capacity improvements at Rhyndaston on the main north-south rail line, which will put rail back into the picture a bit more than it currently is, with its present management levels and a company that does not seem to be able to make any headway in improving its lot.

The Rhyndaston rail area was built in the 1880s using horses and drays, picks and shovels. There are many very bad bends. It needs to be upgraded considerably and $24 million is allocated to do that. There is also $30 million to upgrade the Derwent Valley rail line and bridges from Boyer to Karanja to reduce the number of log trucks on the road, as well as $50 million to upgrade the H5 engine of the Derwent Valley Railway. This is a tourism issue, not a road funding issue. There is $5 million towards a $6.2 million investment to start planning the Pontville-Bagdad bypass and build the new Bridgewater Bridge. There is $4.5 million towards a $5.6 million to upgrade the Northern Midlands Highway. There is $31.6 million to improve the main north-south line rail capacity. When you take bends out of the rail line, you improve the travel time and less fuel is used by those rail engines. There is $11.7 million to upgrade the west coast rail spurs to Hellyer Mine and the Melba Flats connection to Zeehan, which I certainly hope to see come together in the future.

Altogether, around the state, these commitments total $446 million and they will be delivered in partnership with the Tasmanian government through to 2014. These programs, along with Roads to Recovery and help from the trucking industry, are vital and will boost the capacity of Tasmania to continue to contribute to the Australian economy. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Melham) adjourned.