Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the Road Vehicle Standards Legislation Amendment Bill 2019. It's very clear that safety on our roads could never, ever be underestimated. As a former shadow assistant minister for road safety, I know how important safety standards are for vehicles in our country. Almost 1.2 million cars are sold in this country every year in addition to the thousands of trucks, caravans and road vehicles, as you had would well know, Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher, as the chair of the road safety friendship group and from your vast experience in this area as a TAC commissioner amongst other things. At a time when Australia's road toll has sadly been plateauing after many years of continued improvement, it is important that all elements of road safety are continually looked at and, more importantly, improved.

Labor is the party of road safety. There is no secret. It was the former leader of the Australian Labor Party, Mr Bill Shorten, who introduced the new portfolio for a shadow assistant minister. It was good to see that the government extracted a digit, followed and then appointed one of their own. It's more interesting to see that that digit has remained on the table and there is now an assistant minister for road safety in the government—a long time coming. Let's not forget it was that mob over there under the leadership of Mr Howard that dismantled the office of road safety. As you would well know, Mr Acting Deputy President, it was in Labor's platform that, if elected, Labor would reintroduce the Office of Road Safety. Once again another digit was extracted, and I'm happy to say that the Morrison government have said that they are going to reinitiate the Office of Road Safety. There are many questions around its funding and what it will actually do, but I look forward to it. Labor have always shown leadership in keeping people safe on our roads, and I'm very pleased that the government have followed suit, as I've said, and have said they're going to have this new group established in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development. We will continue to monitor the work of this important office to make sure it's properly resourced, as I said earlier.

One death on our roads is one too many, which brings me to the government's Road Vehicle Standards Bill 2017 overview. Going back to 2017, they clearly said that the focus of change is to strengthen and modernise the legislation—this is this bill now we're talking about—and continue to deliver world-leading standards in community and environmental safety. In addition, the reforms are expected to save industry up to $70 million a year and lower regulatory compliance costs. That's why we recognised it was important and we backed it in.

Seventeen years have elapsed since the current act—the Motor Vehicle Standards Act—and its regulation were last reviewed. The new legislative package sets in place a regulatory regime that is more streamlined, we're told. Based on the government's figures, the saving to industry is not insignificant. Whilst Labor held some concerns about the finer detail of the legislation, we supported its passage through the parliament, including that it would commence in the latter part of this year, 2019. That also takes me back to their documentation where they said—I feel like I'm stuck in a time warp—that the Australian government will introduce the Road Vehicle Standards Bill into the parliament in early 2018. They said: 'It is expected to be debated and passed by the parliament in 2018, although both the timing and the decision are ultimately a matter for the parliament to decide. The reforms will commence 12 months after'—if you get your calculator out, after 2018 comes 2019—'the passage of legislation of the Road Vehicle Standards Act.' Quite simply, it is not acceptable for this government to say that it has been put off—they've been talking about it for six years—because it is a request of industry. That is not the case. Labor honestly believes that the mob over there have no plan; they have no idea. You can't sit here and tell everyone six years is still not long enough because you're consulting. What a lot of bulldust.

Time is against me, but I will say: we will continue to back this piece of legislation in but we're not going to sit back and wait until 2021. It's taken eight years to develop a piece of legislation that we've already passed, that we've already accepted, that we've already said we're going to support and going to continue to support. So I urge the government over there to at least tell the truth. If you haven't got a plan, tell us you haven't got a plan, but, for what remaining digits may be stuck, can you just extract them? Can you just get it done for crying out loud? I can understand you wanting to stretch it out because you've got nothing else on your plate and nothing else to talk about. Day by day, it's make up some legislation, make up some regulation and hope to hell it all falls into place. I'm saying that we will support the passage of the bill.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm also rising to speak on the Road Vehicle Standards Legislation Amendment Bill 2019. This amendment bill seeks to defer the commencement date of the new Road Vehicle Standards regime following consultation with industry, pushing out the beginning of the regime from December this year to no later than July 2021 and then a year-long transitional period before full commencement. It's been a long time coming, as Senator Sterle just pointed out.

The Greens are actually sympathetic to the challenges that are posed by the short time line that's currently in place for industry to transition. We note, however, that the reason we've got such a short time line is partially because the government took so long to pass the Road Vehicle Standards Bill. This bill is about road vehicle standards—setting up the new regime through which vehicles are approved for sale in Australia by setting up type approvals so that every vehicle to be sold gets individually approved as a specific type. It streamlines the approvals, and it has been a very long time coming. Yep, 17 years since—

Debate interrupted.