Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (17:58): I too am pleased to speak on this bill that will improve road safety for our community, and I welcome the bipartisan support from those opposite. Road safety is a critical issue for the government because too many Victorians die on our roads and too many families and friends are unnecessarily touched by the road toll. Road trauma can be prevented, and this legislation is another step towards that. I support the government’s road safety strategy of eliminating deaths from our roads by 2050 and reducing the road toll by 50 per cent by 2030.

The statistics paint a clear picture of what changes we need to adopt to save lives. Sadly, 31 people died last year while not wearing a seatbelt. This equates to 13 per cent of the 2021 road toll. We need to make changes to laws and methods of detection to ensure people are wearing seatbelts. It is too important not to. Further, we must address the issue of driver distraction, particularly the use of mobile phones while driving. Driver distraction is a significant contributor to fatal accidents on our roads. It is estimated that driver distraction has led to the loss of more than 20 lives annually—20 funerals that should have not been held, 20 families who should not be grieving and 20 communities that should have never been impacted.

Driver distraction is also estimated to cause over 400 serious injuries per year. In 2020 an investigation found one in 42 drivers to be illegally using their mobile phones while driving; however, because there were limitations surrounding how this information was collected, the real amount of mobile phone use by drivers when driving is expected to be much higher, and anecdotally I believe that to be the case.

I thank the Minister for Roads and Road Safety and his ministerial office staff, as well as Regional Roads Victoria Grampians regional director Michael Bailey, manager of transport integration Angela Daraxoglou and their team, for the excellent job they do in looking after roads in Western Victoria.

Importantly, this bill that we have before the house today will amend the Road Safety Act 1986 as well as the Transport Accident Act 1986, and in doing so this legislation will improve enforcement capabilities. It will allow for immediate licence suspension and disqualification for serious road offences, so three reforms to the Transport Accident Act 1986.

Great things are happening in Ballarat when it comes to roads and road safety. I thank the minister for his support for upgrading Ballarat roads and making our roads safer for all users, whether that be trucks, buses, cars, motorbikes, scooters, bicycles or pedestrians. One fantastic example of this is the new Ballarat Safer Cycling Connections Sturt Street shared path, which has greatly improved road safety for bike riders and the broader community, with new traffic lights and pedestrian signals installed in the median to allow pedestrians and cyclists to cross safely at these intersections. I am also pleased to see that the Sturt Street–Drummond Street crossing is well underway as the final stage to be completed of our shared path. The new shared path replaces the existing narrower gravel path that runs along the southern edge of Sturt Street between Pleasant Street and Dawson Street, with a smooth surface for bikes, trikes, scooters and prams. Importantly, the design of our new shared path has an increased buffer between the path and existing traffic lanes, making it safer and easier for pedestrians and cyclists to access central Ballarat by bike or by foot as well as to enjoy our historic Sturt Street gardens. The path also provides safe passage for students wanting to ride their bikes to Ballarat Clarendon College, to St Patrick’s College, to Loreto College and to Ballarat High School from central Ballarat. The safety upgrades to Sturt Street and the construction of the shared bike path have created local jobs as well as providing safe alternate transport options for the community. This transformative investment was part of a $9.3 million Ballarat Safer Cycling Connections project in partnership with the Transport Accident Commission.

We are also improving local roads and road safety with the Keeping Ballarat Moving projects, which are being delivered to support growing populations in my electorate in Alfredton, Delacombe and Winter Valley, as well as new traffic lights in Gillies Street, Adelaide gardens, Albert Street in Sebastopol and out the front of Loreto College. We are also upgrading the roundabouts at Cuthberts Road and Sturt Street to improve traffic flow, and as the projects are titled, we are keeping Ballarat moving. I was at Delacombe Bunnings on the weekend thanking our Grampians Health team for the great work they are doing with the pop-up vaccination clinic and was pleased to see the amount of work going on with the removal of the roundabout in the lead-up to the installation of new traffic lights at the Delacombe town centre. The $60 million investment is significant for our community. The upgrades of six traffic hotspots in the surrounding roads will improve travel and reduce the risk of crashes at key intersections, thus road safety across Ballarat.

Road safety is a priority for this government. Through our road safety we are addressing the road toll and aiming for a 50 per cent reduction by 2030, just eight years away. The Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 is a crucial part of this strategy. Its critical amendments will make our roads safer and our transport accident scheme fairer. First of all, the bill improves enforcement capabilities through legislative reforms that support the rollout of mobile phone and seatbelt offence detection cameras. We know that driver distraction and disregarding seatbelt requirements are both tied to the significant increases in crash risk and road trauma. Addressing this behaviour is key to reducing the road toll, and according to the Monash University Accident Research Centre automated traffic offence technology has the capacity to prevent 95 casualty crashes per year. This government has committed more than $33 million over five years to this rollout, which is anticipated to begin in early 2023 with a three-month transitionary period and an extensive information campaign.

Secondly, this bill proposes to add to the list of offences that trigger immediate licence suspension and disqualification. These additional charges include culpable driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death or serious injury and the most serious of hit-and-run offences, ensuring the removal of the most dangerous drivers from our roads.

Finally, the bill makes important amendments to the Transport Accident Act 1986 concerning how benefits are paid in specific circumstances. These include increasing the age of a dependent child from under 16 to under 18, in line with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006; also removing discrimination for older workers who experience traffic accidents at retirement age by increasing entitlements from 12 months to 36 months; ensuring that children who lose two parents in a single accident receive the benefits for each; and expanding the TAC scheme to further cover cyclists injured by opening doors. These amendments correct anomalies and inequalities in Victoria’s transport accident insurance scheme and facilitate the essential work done by TAC in supporting victims of road trauma. It is well known that regional and rural Victoria is over-represented in the road toll, and we need to do more to save lives.

I would like to give a shout-out to the TAC for the support they give community football and netball clubs across Victoria, particularly in rural and regional areas. Football and netball clubs are the lifeblood of so many communities, including mine, which is why it is so important the TAC are working with clubs to encourage their players, the parents, family members and supporters to follow the road rules and drive safely. The TAC have built a strong relationship with local football and netball clubs in the Wendouree electorate, including the mighty Redan football club and the Lake Wendouree Lakers, working with them to educate club members about the importance of road safety. This was included in the Towards Zero round in the AFL Goldfields region in 2019. Then in 2020 the TAC provided $1.3 million through the Towards Zero club grants program.

What we have heard about this legislation that is before the house today is that we need to take action to save lives. We need to do things differently, and by doing things differently we need to use technology better to make our roads safer. We need to reduce driver distraction because we know that mobile phones are causing fatal accidents and bringing about far too many injuries every year. As a government and community, we need to do better. We must do better when it comes to road safety and addressing the causes of the road toll. Too many lives have been lost because of people not wearing seatbelts. This is not on—this is not on in 2022. Everyone must be wearing a seatbelt, whether it be a child in the back seat or a parent in the front seat. I strongly encourage everyone to take road safety seriously. Wear a seatbelt, drive to conditions, follow speed limits, do not drink and drive, and put your phone on ‘Do not disturb’ to stay alive.

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