Wednesday, 31 July 2024

 Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (19:05): (743) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the minister to urgently install traffic lights at the intersection of Bank Street and the Princes Highway in Traralgon. The minister may be sensing some deja vu, and that is because I stood in this place eight months ago and requested this exact action. Despite this, despite repeated calls since then and despite pleas from the Latrobe Valley community, the notoriously dangerous intersection at Bank Street still does not have traffic lights, and it is a death trap waiting to happen.

Last week ambulances and MICA paramedics were called to Bank Street after a crash involving a school bus and a car. Two people were taken to hospital. I pass through this intersection most days, and in my own mind I had run the scenario of a truck hitting a car or a car hitting a golf cart leaving the golf club – never had I thought about a school bus being involved in an accident at the intersection. Now imagine being the parent and receiving a call to say the school bus your child was travelling on has been involved in a serious crash, a crash that was completely avoidable. A few weeks ago the minister reduced the speed limit at the Princes Highway through Bank Street to 60 kilometres an hour despite warnings this would do little to improve safety, so the warning bells are obviously going off in the minister’s office that this newly altered intersection is a major danger to everyone who passes through it. Then when I asked directly why the traffic lights could not be installed, the minister showed a complete lack of understanding by suggesting traffic lights would add to the risk at Bank Street because cars may queue across the railway line and the highway. This is something that they have already been doing for decades. We know the traffic lights will not be linked with the railway line, which is the issue, until at least 2026 because of issues with signalling and upgrades, but we need lights on the poles, and we need them operating from now.

It is not good enough that people are literally risking their lives every day at this intersection because of the government’s inaction. It is not good enough that a school bus full of children was involved in a serious crash last week. It is not good enough that the minister has ignored repeated calls for traffic lights to be installed at Bank Street. Does somebody need to die, Minister, for this government to take this issue seriously? I implore the minister, and the Latrobe Valley residents implore the minister – install the traffic lights at the Bank Street intersection and install them now.