Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have just heard from the member for Robertson on the importance of roads in Australia. I rise to speak on keys2drive, a Labor program started in 2009, with the express purpose of keeping young people safe on Australian roads. Some 250,000 young Australians have gone through keys2drive, learning the skills they need to stay safe, so it makes no sense to me that this government is considering axing this program on 1 July. This government, which says that it can afford $50 billion in handouts to corporations and banks, cannot find even $4 million a year to keep this vital national program going.

Nothing is more important to mums and dads than the safety of their children. We know that far too many young drivers lose their lives on Australian roads. Many more survive crashes but are left with lifelong injury and trauma. This program gets results, with a 35 per cent drop in fatalities for young people aged 17 to 29 in the past year alone. The University of New South Wales found that Keys2Drive participants are 28 per cent less likely than the general population to have a crash and 40 per cent less likely to be involved in a crash that causes moderate to serious injury within their first six months as a P-plate driver—so why on earth is this government considering axing a program that keeps young Australians alive?

Keys2Drive equips young drivers with vital skills. Furthermore, and just as importantly, it tests and upskills the supervisor driver. If anything, we should be increasing funding for Keys2Drive, not axing it. Lachlan McIntosh of the Australasian College of Road Safety says it is extremely short-sighted to axe a program like Keys2Drive. He notes that, in addition to the human toll, road trauma costs the economy $30 billion a year. He was reported telling News Corporation:

This expenditure needs to be seen as an investment ... it is just smart economics.

Harvey Lennon, the CEO of the RAC in Tasmania, is also backing Keys2Drive. His organisation has delivered 20,000 lessons over the past year. Bronwyn Fielder, who has worked on the program in Hobart for five years, reports that its P-plate graduates are involved in fewer crashes than their peers. My electorate has been swamped with emails from mums and dads who are outraged that this program faces the axe on 1 July. It is not too much to ask that $16 million be set aside over the forward estimates to continue Keys2Drive. Let's do the right thing by the young drivers of this country.