David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is generally known as the 'nanny state inquiry'. During that 'nanny state inquiry'—which I chaired—in the last parliament, mandatory bicycle helmet laws were nominated by many submitters as a primary example of nanny state paternalism. They argue that individuals should be able to manage the risks involved in a bike ride and that the ability of the individual to do so is constrained because their assessment of such risk is overridden by the state.

They questioned why Australia cannot trust its citizens to assess their circumstances and make that choice for themselves. They said things like:

If we need the law to protect us from ourselves, then what does that say about ourselves? The helmet law is an insult to our civil liberty.

It was argued that the state can only justify interference in the conduct of individual citizens when it is clear that doing so will prevent a greater harm to others. It was argued that helmet laws do not meet this test, because an individual's head poses no plausible threat to the safety and wellbeing of others. Indeed, it was suggested that helmet laws are a textbook example of where the state overreaches itself in imposing norms of behaviour where the matter should be left to the individual.

Other related arguments included the view that the individual and societal benefits of cycling and cycling more frequently outweigh the costs of not wearing a helmet and therefore the health and social costs. In this regard the view was put that mandatory helmet laws have had a negative impact on cycling participation rates in Australia as they deter people from cycling. It was suggested that mandatory helmets were responsible for the low participation rates in Australia's two public bike share schemes, which have the lowest usage rates in the world. It was argued that helmet laws involve unnecessary use of law enforcement resources and misuse of police power. One witness to the inquiry described being arrested and strip searched for failing to pay fines arising from not wearing a helmet. Even claims that helmet laws have achieved any meaningful reduction in the rate of brain or head injury were questioned by witnesses.

Australia was the first country to enact mandatory helmet laws, which became nationwide in 1992. New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates followed, and a number of countries enforce a helmet requirement for children. But that is it. The rest of the world has not adopted Australia's approach. The requirement for the use of helmets is included in the Australian Road Rules, national model legislation which is adopted by the individual states and territories. However, a number of submitters noted that the states and territories introduced mandatory helmet laws in order to comply with a Commonwealth 10-point road safety program, which included bicycle helmets, and thereby secure Commonwealth funding under the black spot road program—that is, they were either bribed or blackmailed.

There have been reviews of mandatory helmet laws. In November 2013, the Queensland parliament Transport, Housing and Local Government Committee recommended a 24-month trial that would exempt cyclists aged 16 years and over from helmet laws when riding in parks, on footpaths and shared cycle paths and on roads with a speed limit of 60 kilometres per hour or less. The Queensland government did not support the recommendation, insisting that 'the weight of evidence confirms the importance of wearing a bicycle helmet while riding.' In 2010, the New South Wales parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety noted that the majority of submissions and bulk of evidence received by it support the current mandatory use of helmets for bicycle riders. This weight and bulk of evidence, so convincing to the Queensland government and the New South Wales road safety committee, but unconvincing to the rest of the world, was equally unconvincing during the inquiry.

As I said, whether helmets actually reduce injuries is contested. Some witnesses suggested they merely change the nature of the injuries sustained. The point was made that if helmet legislation had been effective in preventing head injuries, there would be a fall in head injury incidents but not in other injuries. Yet the committee was informed that a 1996 study in NSW and Victoria found that the decline in cycling was at least as substantial as the decline in head injuries. In other words, if people are not cycling they cannot incur head injuries. One witness put to the committee that a person cycling two hours per week for 50 years would cycle for a total of 5,200 hours and, over that time, only have a one per cent risk of hospital admission for serious head injury. Yet it was suggested that even if one traumatic brain injury was avoided, it was worth it. A reduction of civil liberty was said to be preferable to the long-term effect of a head and brain injury on a victim's family, carers and society.

This is the nub of the issue. Such an assertion is based on an assumption of socialised medicine. In other words, the cost of health care is socialised via Medicare and other taxpayer funding. This is a slippery slope. If we are to minimise the burden of health care on each other, then all of us must ensure we avoid risks, and insist others do the same. Every glass of wine, every cigar, every potato chip, every piece of chocolate is potentially increasing the cost of the health system to our fellow Australians. Where does it end? A better option is to consider health as a private matter and not the business of the government. This merely requires each of us to have health insurance, with public funding limited to paying for insurance for the genuinely poor. In the end, the committee simply recommended a review of the mandatory helmet laws. I would go much further than that.

I believe a cost-benefit study would show the impact of helmet laws to be negative, given the low prevalence of cyclist head injury, notwithstanding the seriousness of individual traumatic brain injury cases, and the negative effects of the policy. I also maintain that, in the absence of compelling evidence demonstrating a substantial social benefit, there should be a bias in favour of individual choice and responsibility. It is especially not the role of government to protect individuals against the consequences of their own choices when the risks, particularly, are small, foreseeable and borne personally. I would remove the obligation from all cyclists to wear helmets, while making it clear to parents that their responsibility to their children should include serious consideration of wearing one. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.