Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

September is Rural Road Safety Month. With crashes on rural roads overrepresented in fatalities in the national road toll, it's an important month for all Australians. Rural Road Safety Month is a national community based initiative from the Australian Road Safety Foundation that highlights the additional risks of driving on or around rural roads. With higher speeds and, commonly, driver error or risky behaviour, be it intentional or unintentional, the risk of driving on rural roads is increased.

In the first three days of Rural Road Safety Month, 13 people were killed on Australian roads. That's 13 people who never got to say goodbye to their family, 13 people who will not see another day, and many more friends and family who will be left with an irreplaceable void and heartbreaking grief. But, unfortunately, in the past 12 months, from July 2022 to July 2023, 1,234 deaths on our roads have occurred. It's people like Jaylan, who, at the young age of 18 years, was killed at high speed. For his father, Michael, a police officer of 24 years, life has changed forever. It is people like 21-year-old Emily, who was killed on a rural road outside Rockhampton in 2020. Her father, Adrian, was forever devastated.

Every death on our roads is a tragic, incomprehensible loss of life. There is no denying that it has been an horrific year on our roads. Road safety is a shared responsibility. We, along with every other state and territory, are committed to Vision Zero—that is, zero deaths and zero injuries in road crashes by 2050.