Thursday, 19 June 2025

Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Melissa Horne:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Jackson TAYLOR (Bayswater) (15:19): It is a great pleasure and a privilege to rise to speak in support of this bill, the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025. Can I from the outset say a huge thankyou to the hardworking Minister for Roads and Road Safety and Minister for Ports and Freight. It is a bill with lots of different elements to it that will improve our roads, improve roads and road safety and make a number of what I believe are substantial amendments to improve the efficiency of the relevant portfolio spaces.

Of course in thanking the minister, can I also thank the hardworking staff in the minister’s office and, importantly, the incredible people in the respective departments for the work they have no doubt done in helping to pull this all together and for all the work and consultation they have done with the relevant internal and external stakeholders. I always like to start by giving credit where it is indeed due.

I would also like to just take a moment to reflect on a few contributions. It has been wonderful hearing some of the fantastic contributions from my colleagues in this place. I know the member for Werribee spoke about the importance of roads and road safety investments that the Allan Labor government is delivering in his fantastic electorate of Werribee – of course, not as fantastic as Bayswater.

John Lister interjected.

Jackson TAYLOR: I am more than happy to continue this debate without being unruly and taking up interjections from the member for Werribee, who so profusely defends the fantastic electorate that is Werribee. But it was fantastic to hear the member for Werribee, who has already spoken on numerous pieces of legislation and who has spoken on a number of debates, talking up his fantastic community. It is great to see. So well done to the member for Werribee. The member for Lara as well – who is not in this place at the moment – gave a fantastic contribution about the importance of the impacts of this bill, the changes being made by this bill and the positive outcomes it will have for her electorate. Equally, the member for Albert Park, who always speaks so eloquently and with such intellect, gave a ripsnorting contribution. Thank you very much to the member for Albert Park, and I appreciate the fact that you have remained in situ and you have provided the eloquent head-nodding for my no doubt lacklustre contribution. So thank you, member for Albert Park. To the member for Bass as well – always a fantastic contribution. She always speaks with such passion for her community down there. Would you call it the outer south-east, member for Broadmeadows? Outer south-east, member for Bass? What do you call it?

A member interjected.

Jackson TAYLOR: Far away. Fantastic. Excellent. It is always great to hear from the member for Bass. Also, I just had a fantastic conversation with the Acting Speaker, the member for Bellarine. It was great to hear about some of the work that she did with parliamentary colleagues across the aisle, people from all political persuasions, on the important inquiry that was held into road safety around vulnerable road users. Of course it is really, really important that we continue to find more ways to protect all road users, and particularly vulnerable road users. It was good to hear, in talking to the member for Bellarine, about her work, the committee’s work and the government’s response, which has indeed been very, very positive.

This is a really important piece of legislation because it also proves that the Allan Labor government is continuing to reform, continuing to push forward policy, not resting on our laurels and not taking the status quo as acceptable but continuing to listen to stakeholders and make sure that our roads and our ports and our freight systems safer, better and more efficient and effective for every single Victorian and for Victorian families. I am very proud that that is exactly what this legislation does.

This legislation also gives me an opportunity to talk about some fantastic local projects. But before I get on to that, in some brief detail, this legislation will enable better road safety outcomes by making updates and clarifications to the Road Safety Act 1986 to aid enforcement activities. It will reduce risk of injury and disruption by introducing a licensing scheme for mooring services in commercial ports and by making other updates to improve the operation of local ports under the Port Management Act 1995. For anyone listening at home, even though I am the member for Bayswater, there is no bay and there is no water, so there is no mooring and no local port in Bayswater. But that does not mean – member for Point Cook, as he walks out; not that he was casting any aspersions. It does not exist in Bayswater, but mind you, it exists in many places around this state, and of course it is something this government is very passionate about backing in and supporting. I know it is an important part of this legislation, and it certainly is an important area of reform for this government.

Of course this bill will also enable improved flexibility in assigning responsibility for road infrastructure and improved consent-for-works processes under the Road Management Act 2004. It will support efficient and effective administration of legislation by consolidating provisions relating to the investigative powers of the chief investigator, transport safety, in the Transport (Safety Schemes Compliance and Enforcement) Act 2014.

However, this gives me an opportunity to talk about some of the fantastic local projects in the electorate of Bayswater and across Knox and indeed areas where I have been very proud to be the member for over the course of my journey in this place. Just recently we had major construction finish up at the Alchester Village intersection in Boronia. We love Boronia. For those of you who have not travelled to Boronia, you have got to check it out. This place is up and about.

Steve McGhie interjected.

Jackson TAYLOR: Where is it? It is a fantastic opportunity, member for Melton. It is nestled at the foothills about 35 kilometres east of the central business district of Melbourne. It is surrounded and lined by leafy green streets. Our garbage bin services are now fortnightly, not weekly, much to the dismay of some people. It has trees galore. It has wonderful, good people. It has got a huge business precinct right at its doorstep, the Bayswater business precinct. I would like a few more people to catch public transport to the Bayswater business precinct.

Steve McGhie interjected.

Jackson TAYLOR: What was that, member for Melton?

Steve McGhie interjected.

Jackson TAYLOR: No, no caravan parks. It is probably a little too close these days, the outer east. People want to live there. Young families are moving there. I look at the new electors list each and every single month, and when an election is on it seems to be a lot more than every month. There are a lot of young families, particularly from the inner east, moving out to Bayswater, Boronia and Ferntree Gully. It is a fantastic part of the world. We love it. Lots of young families are calling Boronia home, and they are very happy, member for Melton.

The Alchester Village roundabout previously was in the middle of an arterial road, being Mountain Highway, connecting through to another arterial, Colchester Road, connecting up to Kilsyth South – which I was very proud to previously represent – and also down to Albert Avenue, a local road managed by Knox City Council. This was something that local residents spoke to me about as early as 2019. This was identified as a priority project by Knox council in terms of advocacy, direct from our local government authority, and was also identified on a priority list from the Department of Transport and Planning. I met with residents out there in 2019, and I am very proud that, after much advocacy, a few budgets ago we were able to fund the upgrade and the installation of an intersection there, fully signalised with pedestrian crossings. That is so important, because that is right next to a local shopping strip, which is fantastic. It is home to the best Thai food in the outer east, at Mountain Thai – I tell you what, the pad thai there is second to none – and Alchester Fish and Chips, which is out of this world, with potato cakes that you would not believe. We have also got a fantastic florist there, Bloomin’ Goodies. I went out and saw Tobie there recently. She does fantastic vase classes of a night-time. I have heard they are fully booked, although there might be some places if you are lucky. So definitely, if you are watching – for the six people watching right now this absolute banger of a contribution – please check in with Bloomin’ Goodies and see if there are any more spots left in the vase classes. The minister at the table is confused.

Lily D’Ambrosio: No, I’m not.

Jackson TAYLOR: Are you thinking of you thinking of –

Lily D’Ambrosio: I’m coming.

Jackson TAYLOR: Excellent, Minister D’Ambrosio – just for Hansard. Fantastic. We have upgraded Alchester. It is fantastic. It backs in local traders and makes it easier for families to come across. There are other local schools around it so it gets a lot of foot traffic, and it will now make it safer. I am no traffic engineer, but I have said to the few people out there who rail against signalised intersections, ‘I’m all about safety, and if traffic engineers and experts tell you it’s going to be safer, then I’m sorry, my friend, you might have to wait 5 or 10 seconds longer every so often.’ But ultimately, during peak time as well as off-peak time, when I have rolled up there – straight through, no dramas. At the roundabout in peak time – terrible, terrible. So your potato cakes will come quicker, your pad thai will come quicker, you can back in local traders and you know it is going to be safer for each and every single local in that part of the world. I have got 9 seconds left, but all I will say is: McMahons Road in Ferntree Gully, those opposite talked about it for years. Boom – local member, and it was done and delivered last year. I commend the bill to the house.

Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (15:29): Member for Bayswater, that was well done. He has gone from ports to fish and chips. I was not going to pull him up on a point of order. I thought, ‘Well, if you’ve gone that wide, I’m going wide too.’ I am pleased to rise today to talk about the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025. It is an omnibus bill. There is a fair bit to it. It covers numerous acts: the Road Safety Act 1986, the Road Management Act 2004, the Port Management Act 1995, the Marine Safety Act 2010, the Marine (Drug, Alcohol and Pollution Control) Act 1988 and various other acts. It goes on and on and on.

There is a fair bit in here, and, obviously, following the member for Bayswater, the debate has gone very wide today. It was lovely to hear about the fish and chips and the pad thai in Boronia. I must get out there one day, although I am tipping the food in the seat of Narracan is better. It is fresher, and it is closer to the table. Farm to table – that is what it is down our way.

There is one part of this bill I do want to talk on, and it is not fish and chips in Boronia, because I have not found that in the bill yet – I am looking for it: the part where we talk about the amendments to the Road Management Act 2004. Although on this side of the house we do not oppose this bill, there is a concern about this bill, and I think it is important to point this out to the government because they may want to think about this in the future. It is where we talk about the consent for works process. Having a bit of experience in this space from my former life and having had to deal with authorities like VicRoads, Melbourne Water and every other authority you have to deal with when you are doing types of developments these days, I can see the consent for works process dragging things out. I will just quote what the Urban Development Institute of Australia, one of the leading development groups in this state, have said:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

The UDIA notes the risk of introducing delays and inefficiency to development delivery, especially in growth areas where coordinating road authorities may be under-resourced and slow to respond.

The reason I am leaning into this point on this bill today is because when you do a development you have to go out to all the relevant authorities. In that process, as you go out there, the relevant authorities will quite often use what we call an RFI, a request for information, because they are on timelines all the time, or they are meant to be. I will give you an example with Melbourne Water. On one development that I was involved with Melbourne Water actually took nine months to come out to a site to determine whether a spring was a creek or not. When we are in the middle of a housing crisis like we are now and we need developers to get going, I think with this new section of the bill, consent for works, the government is nearly giving an authority an excuse to delay, and that is not a good thing. We need our authorities to be more efficient, not give them that chance to make up a reason to delay.

When you are planning developments, it takes a lot of time. Unfortunately, with the way things are structured nowadays, I know developments that have taken five, six, seven, eight years to get through the planning process. If you think back to when they originally purchased the land, if that development is out in 18 months, it is more affordable for Victorians. But if you are waiting eight years, that price just goes up and up and up. You might do a feasibility study at $150,000 a block, and in six years time it is $300,000 a block. That is our Victorian public that are paying double. This is where we need to work on efficiency, especially with planning, to get these developments through, and this consent for works I believe will give VicRoads, or whatever authority is in charge of this, that excuse. We need to take away the excuses. We need to get efficiency back into the system, because if it is not efficient it costs more in the long run.

I do not care where your seat is, whether it is Bellarine, Narracan, Mildura or Thomastown. Wherever you are, you will have seen the effects of a lack of housing supply at the moment. We all get the knocks on our doors: ‘We can’t find anywhere to rent. We can’t live anywhere.’ Although we do not have a problem with most of this bill, this is a part of the bill that is of concern. I think the government needs to really reconsider this and try to make things more efficient, not give an authority an excuse to drag things out. That is a really big concern because, as I just stated, the longer we drag things out, the more it will cost.

I think when we are in the middle of a housing crisis, when we all know that housing affordability is at an all-time low, we need to get things moving quicker to get supply out there and to create competition to bring prices back. That is what we should be aiming to do, but this section of the bill does not do that. I can kind of understand why they have done it. I get the consent for works – I have had to deal with that myself – but I do not think this is the right way to word it.

I think authorities will use it as an excuse to extend their time to respond. We should get to a point where if an authority has not responded in a certain amount of time, that should be approved. But that is not happening. I just gave you the example of Melbourne Water taking nine months just to do an inspection. But this does not happen just with VicRoads and Melbourne Water; it happens in every authority where you have to deal with planning. And councils as well – anyone that has sat on council or has had to deal with council knows that councils will put through an RFI to extend that timeframe. They do it all the time. Whether it is staffing issues or not I am not sure. I am not involved in those authorities, obviously; I do not work there. Where they are understaffed and they need more staff to respond quicker, then maybe that is something the government needs to look at. I do know in this sector that there is trouble getting staffing, especially in the planning sector. But other than that, most of this bill – and I am not going to go into the whole thing again; we have had numerous speakers on it, we have had our shadow minister speak on it. But I think this is the important part. We actually need to focus on this bill, and I think the government actually needs to listen to this.

I just heard the member for Bayswater talk about our improved roads. Well, that might be the case in Bayswater and it might be the case in a lot of other Labor seats, but it is not the case in my seat. Our roads are not improved. Our roads in fact are getting worse. I have been waiting nearly 12 months to get some potholes fixed in a certain section of road in my electorate. I do not see this bill making roads better. To make roads better we need to get the crews out there to fix the problem. The bill will not do that. The bill may make some amendments to certain things, but I do not see anywhere in this bill where it says our roads will be better because of this bill. I think the member for Bayswater might have gone a little bit sideways there – not quite as far as his favourite Thai restaurant or his fish and chip shop in his local area, but he definitely went sideways when he said this bill will improve roads. I do not see that happening, and it is something the government needs to invest in and actually start to look at, where priority roads need to be fixed.

I am sure in the in the seat of Bellarine, Acting Speaker Marchant, there will be roads where you drive around and you see that they need to be improved. We make those phone calls to VicRoads. We make them to say, ‘Hey, here’s an issue.’ But it is taking way too long to get fixed. The one issue I have is that Tynong Road in my area has a sharp little turn, and it took me three months to get a straight answer from someone, because it was not VicRoads and it was not council, that at the end of the day it was actually in a road reserve. It came back to VicRoads. I brought that up with VicRoads well over six months ago. It is still not fixed. If we want to improve road safety, let us improve the process. I know you can get online and you can see what is a VicRoads road and what is a local council road, but every now and again there are these grey spots and council goes, ‘Not my job,’ and VicRoads says, ‘Not my job,’ until you get down to the actual person whose job it is. If we want to talk about road safety, let us get the crews out there and fix the problems.

This bill, as I said, we do not oppose, but I do have a concern with the consent for works. I think that is going to cause delays, and that is also reiterated by the UDIA. I think the government probably needs to re-look at that, word it differently, so we do not give the authorities an excuse to drag it out.

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (15:39): I too rise to speak on the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025. This bill aims to make a number of small but, let us face it, really important changes to our road safety laws so that Victorians can get around this state a whole lot safer, and I think it is changes like this that matter most to Victorians. It may not be something that we think about each and every single day, but let us face it, the majority of us will at some time in our lives be driving. I think that changes to our roads and our safety laws in ensuring that everyone is able to travel along our roads safer and get home safer are just so important for everyone.

I am really glad to be able to speak on this legislation because it is an issue that I have been talking about in my community quite a lot lately and I consider really important for families in my patch. Over the last couple of years I have had many conversations with folks when I am out and about in the community, and one of the biggest issues I hear relates to the roads and how they need to be improved. By ‘improved’ I am talking about traffic lights, better pedestrian safety measures, lights for pedestrians and green arrow lights to turn. That is a real bugbear of mine, when I go through lights and there is no green arrow. You can be stuck at the traffic lights because you are not sure about whether to take the risk in turning into oncoming traffic, particularly if you live in certain parts of the west where there are a lot of trucks. Let us face it, there are certain parts of the western suburbs where there are a hell of a lot of trucks. We are talking about improvements in relation to this sort of thing. Improvements are important because we want to see fewer accidents happen on our roads.

An example of these conversations I have been having in Truganina last year was parents and families who live around a really fantastic local school, Truganina P–9 College, and they raised pedestrian safety with me as a major issue near a very, very, very busy road called Leakes Road. It is a road I cannot talk about here in this place without saying that Leakes Road used to be a single-lane carriageway that was extremely congested. A lot of growth was happening, and you had in the new burbs what I would call a country bumpkin road that certainly was not fit for my growing community in Truganina. Leakes Road was expanded in a very major way. It formed part of the $1.8 billion western roads project in the last parliamentary term. It was an incredible thing that the Labor government did to widen that road for current but also projected future growth in the local area. I was just driving down it the other day, and I said to a staff member in the car who did not live in Truganina, ‘You wouldn’t believe that this used to be single-lane, based on how many cars are on the road.’ She was like, ‘How did people get to and from work and school?’ I said it was really difficult, and people were very patient over a number of years in which it was widened. It was a lot of work and it cost a lot of money, but I cannot imagine what Truganina and places like Tarneit – this is a road that goes through the guts of these suburbs – would look like if it had remained that single carriageway. Thank God we did that.

Trug P–9 runs just off that major road, and thanks to the great advocacy of the local school, the school council president, the principal and the parents who live in and around that local area we were actually able to set up and trial some red-light cameras at this location. I know people get a bit funny about red-light cameras. It is not a very popular announcement when I make it about us putting more in our local community, I do know that. But what we do know is that red-light cameras work. They make people slow down, especially if they know that they are there. We were able to trial red-light cameras at the location, which was really good, and I know lots of parents are very pleased about this.

Another area where I have to say recently we have had some movement in this space is Fitzgerald Road in Sunshine West. If you are a westie and you know this particular road, you will know the exact location that I am talking about. It is the section of Fitzgerald Road that connects folks in Sunshine West to the Western Ring Road. It is an incredibly busy intersection and piece of road infrastructure. There are a lot of cars and a hell of a lot of trucks and heavy vehicles moving in and around that area, usually at high speed. There is a particular intersection along the road that connects to a major local street, and it is a major local street because it heads down to a great set of shops at The Avenue – it is actually called The Avenue. For people who live in this part of Sunshine West this intersection is their only avenue to travel to and from work in Laverton North, to access the Woolies up the road, to fill up at the Shell or indeed to get out onto the ring road to head towards the city. It is very, very busy.

Having been down there a couple of weeks ago to do some filming for the great announcement that we made there, it is incredibly difficult to cross as someone who was just trying to cross there on one of the side roads. So I was very pleased that we were able to lower the speed limit on this particular section of the road from 80 k’s to 60 k’s. It is certainly not a silver bullet to fix everything. I know a lot of locals actually wanted traffic lights there, but we have to be conscious about ensuring that traffic flow is still possible. Like I said, it is a major thoroughfare for people travelling to the city and in the opposite direction from the city and wherever they need to go. But we lowered that speed limit in that particular section from 80 to 60, which I think was a really good thing. Sometimes lowering speed limits, up on social media it causes a lot of friction within the community, but what I do know is those locals living in and around The Avenue absolutely love the speed limit being lowered. They had been asking for it for a long time, and I think it is actually a really good win for the local community, a good thing to do.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention our government’s $976 million investment into road maintenance that has been funded in this year’s budget. We heard a lot about that at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee over the last two weeks, and this is going to go directly into rebuilding and repairing and resurfacing roads right across Victoria, including in our regions, where this is all the more important. I think that even if you are a metropolitan member of Parliament – I think you are referred to in this house as a townie or an out-of-towner, depending on where you live in Victoria – just because you are a townie like me does not mean we do not go on holidays. We go for weekend drives and take our kids and our families into the beautiful countryside that is regional and rural Victoria. We love using those roads, and yes, some of them have needed significant work and upgrades. I know that this $976 million investment is going to go towards fixing those roads that I may not use every day – there are others that use them every day – but when I do use them I want to make sure they are safe. So this has been an incredible announcement.

Gosh, it turns out I love talking about roads and road safety. In under 2 minutes, in the last moments I have in making a contribution on this bill, it does make changes relating to the enforcement of road safety offences. An example of that is that the bill amends part 5 of the Road Safety Act 1986 to allow for additional professionals to be prescribed as approved health professionals when it comes to obtaining blood samples from drug and alcohol tests that are being undertaken, making sure everyone is being safe on the roads. I think that is a really good thing. I do see, and I have seen them across the western suburbs lately, a lot of drug and alcohol testing units and sometimes that big bus with all the flashing lights. I think it is a really good thing, and we do not just see it on a Friday night and a Saturday night. Sometimes quite often on a Thursday night they are there in particular places after Parliament. I think it is a really good message to people that they should not be drinking and driving or taking drugs and driving. It is about making sure that folks and families like all of ours are safe on the roads.

Changes in this bill that are locking down enforcement to ensure our roads are safe are really important. I do want to thank the minister for bringing this bill before the house. It is a tremendous amount of work that the minister has done over the many years that she has been the minister, and I think that her expertise and her knowledge about the Victorian road system and road network has been of tremendous value to this government in being able to fix and repair our roads but also looking for things in our local communities that make travelling along local roads – as I said, those little bloodlines of our community – a whole lot safer. I commend the bill to the house.

Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (15:49): Today I rise to make a contribution on the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025. The bill that we are debating seeks to amend a number of acts related to the roads and road safety and ports and freight portfolios, including but not limited to the Road Safety Act 1986, the Road Management Act 2004, the Port Management Act 1995 and the Marine (Drug, Alcohol and Pollution Control) Act 1988. The bill seeks to deliver a range of legislative amendments to improve safety, achieve operational and administrative efficiencies and improve the effectiveness of transport laws.

Improving road safety is a critical issue in this state, as we know, and road safety must be a priority. We must be doing all that we can to address the alarming rise of our road toll and to make our roads safer. Whilst we are talking about road safety, there is no bigger issue than the neglect by this government of our roads. If anyone in this place has the time to come and see the roads across my electorate – and the former speaker, who I would welcome, mentioned that she would like to do that – I would encourage them to come and see the absolute disgraceful level of neglect. I have called on the Minister for Roads and Road Safety to also come out into the regions and to my electorate and to prioritise works on some of our most unsafe roads. But I know it is not just in my patch. Victoria has become the pothole state. The current state of our roads is appalling, and people are feeling unsafe on our roads. The government is simply not doing enough, and it is one of the biggest issues raised at my office.

Alarmingly, regional Victoria has had a 23 per cent increase in road fatalities. Eighty people have already been killed on regional roads so far this year. As we stand in this place, we all have a responsibility to do all that we can to make our roads safer and to prevent further fatalities. It is easy for those on the other side to criticise our concerns with the lack of road repairs happening across the state, but it is undeniable that our roads are a major safety issue. It has to be addressed, and road safety, as I said, must be a priority.

Recently I jumped in a truck with a local truck driver, Stuart Edgar, who wanted me to experience what he faces every single day in his workplace, trying to navigate the appalling and unsafe roads. It was like being on the Big Dipper; it was incredible. At one point my head almost hit the roof from the impact of a huge pothole. If you would like to see what that experience was like, you can see that footage on my Facebook. Stuart also pointed out the significant cost to the company, with ongoing damage caused to their vehicles. We have a huge transport industry, with 25 per cent of the state’s trucks registered in my electorate. Yet this government has failed to provide a road network upgrade to accommodate the significant transport movement.

We have a primitive road network across my electorate, and we have been calling for the Shepparton bypass for over 30 years. This is not only a matter of efficiency but also a matter of community safety. We have trucks belting through the main streets of Shepparton and Mooroopna. These are main CBD roads joined to retail shops and cafes. Yet the government spend billions on city-centric projects, neglecting the needs and safety of regional communities. Just recently the Herald Sun highlighted some of the roads in my region as the most appalling and unsafe in the state. Here is a quote from Grace from the Herald Sun:

At first, the potholes were small. Then we took a detour, and suddenly I was white-knuckling the grab handle, praying ankle-deep corrugations didn’t swallow our tyre.

Grace also said that other drivers pulled over and offered help while they were filming a torn-up road in Congupna, which is also in my electorate, thinking that they had done a tyre, because that is a regular occurrence. As a reminder, so many people are also damaging their cars, and in a cost-of-living crisis they are struggling to pay for repairs or blown-out tyres. I want to thank Grace from the Herald Sun for coming out into the regions and seeing firsthand the appalling, unsafe conditions of our roads and calling out the Labor government on their neglect.

Whilst we are talking about damage to vehicles, I was heading to an event recently at Tatura, which is 20 minutes from the centre of Shepparton, and I came across five vehicles parked on the side of the road. One after another they had hit a massive pothole and had either blown a tyre or damaged their car. The concern that was raised was that if a motorbike rider had hit that pothole, it would most likely have been a fatality. This is just one of the many roads, and many cars are impacted by the conditions of our roads.

Despite claiming record amounts spent on roads, the government’s own budget papers show a shocking 93 per cent reduction in road patching and a further 14 per cent cut in resealing and rehabilitation. This government is not doing more, it is doing less. We are seeing the direct impact of these cuts on our roads, and the government must ensure that the money is being spent on quality road repairs and road maintenance. On top of this, road maintenance works in rural and regional Victoria dropped 95 per cent, despite a maintenance backlog worth billions of dollars across the regional road network. Whilst the government continues to pour billions of dollars into city-centric projects and cost blowouts, our regional roads are decimated by potholes and crumbling before our eyes due to the lack of maintenance.

I will come back to the bill. As the member for Narracan alluded to, I also want to raise concerns in regard to the reforms to the consent for works, which are problematic. Essentially, the government is giving itself and councils more time to deal with work applications on and around our roads. Under the amendments in the bill, it can stop the clock on applications for works and remove deemed consent for some applications where consent is automatically granted after a period of time.

The government says this is about risk mitigation, ensuring safety and ensuring that potential infrastructure damage is avoided by following a clear and detailed process, and yet, on the other hand, it seems to be a legislative change to ease the pressure of the Department of Transport and Planning and in the process potentially add even more time and therefore cost to important works. These works may include roadworks, utility relocations and similar works that often involve property developments and housing. The risk is that this will only add further red tape to works involving roads where there are roadworks, utility activity or even private developments that require road access, like new intersections or the provision of gas or water and sewerage connections to new housing developments.

The Victorian Transport Association opposed this change, noting it could be used to delay roadworks, and discussions with planners and developers also indicated this is exactly the sort of bureaucratic red tape that builds delay and costs into developments, particularly around housing. The Urban Development Institute of Australia also opposed this provision, also noting the risks of introducing delays and inefficiencies into development delivery.

With the current housing crisis, we cannot have extra barriers or delays, so this is a genuine concern in this bill. We are already seeing such a lengthy delay in roadworks, and it is astounding to think that there could be even greater delays due to processes. As the member for South-West Coast alluded to in the lead contribution on the bill, the minister’s office and the department could not provide any examples of why this amendment is needed.

We also do have concerns with the amendment to part 5 of the Road Safety Act 1986 to allow for additional professionals to be prescribed as approved health professionals for the purposes of obtaining blood samples. As we already know, under this government our health system is already constrained and under pressure. This amendment to the act will only add more pressure to the already strained health workforce. There is also no detail in the bill as to where these health professionals are expected to come from.

The bill improves enforcement of road safety offences. Currently under the act it is an offence for a driver to fail to stop and render assistance after a traffic accident where someone is injured or property is damaged. Most of these offences are known as ‘hit-and-run offences’, which carry two categories of penalty. If someone is seriously injured or killed, the act of failing to stop and render assistance is an indictable offence carrying significant penalties, including up to 10 years imprisonment. The other category covers incidents that have resulted in minor injuries, which are summary offences and carry lesser penalties. Such offences also come with a 12-month period after the incident in which Victoria Police can commence proceedings. This limitation has been proven to be insufficient in some cases, as it takes time for Victoria Police to investigate and identify who was driving the vehicle at the time of the alleged offence. The bill amends a number of provisions and offences currently in the Road Safety Act 1986 to support their investigation and enforcement. The bill will amend the Road Safety Act 1986 to extend the time that Victoria Police have to bring a proceeding for this summary offence from 12 to 24 months to increase the likelihood that the alleged offender can be identified, located and prosecuted.

Another amendment related to non-sworn Victorian police staff having the ability to issue infringements relating to road offences specifically authorises Victoria Police employees to be able to issue infringements for those offences, freeing up sworn police officers for other duties. The Police Association Victoria has said that its preference is for the role to remain with sworn officers. As we saw, in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee budget estimates hearings the depth of the Victoria Police crisis under the watch of this government was brought to light even further, with over 1100 current vacancies, 700 officers on workers compensation, 300 senior officers expected to retire earlier and no additional funding for the Victoria Police Academy. This is a government that has no plan for addressing the ongoing police crisis that is having a direct impact on our communities across the state.

In finishing, with just 49 seconds to go, I think it is critical – and I think this bill is so important – that with any opportunity we get to make changes and adjustments to road safety we do that. But we also need to identify the current dangerous situation that many of our drivers are facing. As I said, the increase in road fatalities, particularly in regional Victoria, is alarming. We need to make sure that these roads do get fixed. We have got some dreadful roads in my electorate, as I have alluded to. They are dangerous. They are unsafe, and they are going to make us lose more lives within this state, so please make sure that we do more, because we have to do better.

Luba GRIGOROVITCH (Kororoit) (15:59): At the outset I would like to thank the Minister for Roads and Road Safety and Minister for Ports and Freight for all the work she has done on this bill. Ultimately this bill is about building safer, smarter transport for all Victorians. There are roads all over our great state, and yes, every road is always in need of repair. That is just the reality of it. My friend the member for Melton and I are part of the fastest growing local government area in Australia, and all we hear about at every public meeting is either roads or public transport. But we need to work together in this place to make sure that we get better roads across our state. That is something that our minister is absolutely gung-ho about and lives and breathes every single day.

The bill before us is very much a wideranging one, but the thing that it does distinctly is it keeps Victorians safer on our roads by providing police with more time to bring proceedings for hit-and-run offences. It improves drink and drug driving testing powers by expanding who can take samples. It takes the pressure off police by allowing trained staff to issue infringements from road safety cameras. It improves commercial port safety by allowing a new licensing scheme for mooring services. It improves oversight on roadworks approvals so they are safer and of course less disruptive. It modernises our port and marine laws to help local port managers remove abandoned vessels and maintain clean, accessible waterways. It lifts outdated limits on oil spill liabilities so polluters pay for clean-up, not taxpayers, and it strengthens no-blame investigations and the protection of sensitive information. All of these are very key and important points.

The Victorian government remains committed to improving road safety outcomes across our great state. The reforms in this bill will deliver improvements to our road safety regulatory framework and support processes to better detect those drivers that are doing the wrong thing. Better detection of road safety offences also serves as a general deterrence. Every Victorian has the right to feel safe on the roads every single day as they are driving. When something goes wrong, especially when someone is, heaven forbid, injured, not only do we expect that drivers do the right thing by stopping and helping out someone who may be injured, but we want to remind them that it is of course the law and it is their responsibility as a person who is lucky enough to have a drivers licence and be able to operate a vehicle on our roads.

Under the Road Safety Act 1986 failing to stop and render assistance after a crash is naturally a serious offence, as it should be. When someone is killed or seriously injured in a hit-and-run it becomes an indictable offence, with no time limit for police to lay charges, but when a person suffers only minor injuries it is classed as a summary offence, and that comes with a 12-month deadline for police to start proceedings. The clock starts ticking from the moment of the crash, and in many cases it is simply just not enough time. It can take months for the police to piece together what happened, to identify the vehicle that was involved and to work out who was actually behind the wheel, especially if the driver, heaven forbid, fled the scene. With the clock ticking, we know that changes need to be made. That is why this bill matters. We are doubling the timeframe from 12 months to 24 months so that police have a fair shot at finding offenders and holding them to account. It is about making sure that justice has been done, even when it takes a long time to bring formal proceedings.

Driving while impaired under alcohol or drugs is a major contributing factor to our road toll and to serious injury here in Victoria. This bill will allow for regulations to specify additional health professionals who are able to take blood and urine samples. I think this is really important for all Victorians. I will never forget when I was in year 8. I had an older brother, as did my best friend. They were both the same age; they had just turned 18. They were so excited. They were getting their licence and were on their P-plates. We were obviously in year 8, so younger, but wanted to go out with our older brothers, who we at that point in time deemed very cool. They just had their P-plates, and I remember my mum and my best friend’s mum were very concerned about allowing us out with our older brothers in their P-plate cars. Of course they did end up letting us, but I will never forget when my brother’s girlfriend ended up being hit by somebody who was a drink driver. That absolutely changed all of our lives. Thank God she lived to tell the story, but it was something that really rattled through not only my family but all of our year level and all of our friends because it suddenly made us realise that a vehicle, a machine that is on the road doing great speeds, whether it be 40 kilometres per hour or 120 kilometres per hour, has so much power, and you behind that wheel have so much power. If you are, however, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, it really amplifies the damage that could potentially be done. That is another reason why this bill matters. It allows for regulations to specify additional health professionals who are able to take blood and urine samples. Having access to additional health professionals will expand Victoria Police’s ability to detect drink- and drug-impaired drivers, who should absolutely not be on our roads, and I am sure that everyone in this place would agree with that.

Then we get to road safety cameras. Road safety cameras are an important component in our regulatory toolkit to detect road safety offences. Offences that can be detected and enforced using these cameras have expanded from speeding to also include red light, seatbelt and distracted driving offences, such as using your mobile phone while driving. Why anybody would use their mobile phone whilst driving is absolutely beyond me, but unfortunately too many people do it. We all, as drivers, just need to remember that the responsibility lies with us. If there is an accident to a loved one, just think: that could be your brother, your sister, your mother, your father or your next-door neighbour. Nobody wants that responsibility on their hands. Offences that can be detected must be enforced, and this bill will allow specially authorised Victoria Police employees to issue infringements for such offences, freeing up sworn officers for other duties that are of course incredibly important in our great state.

The Road Management Act 2004 provides the statutory framework for the management of Victoria’s roads. A key part of what the act does is allocate responsibilities between coordinating road authorities and responsible road authorities, including the responsibility for managing and maintaining infrastructure. Given the complexity of the road network, sometimes a road authority other than the default under the act is better placed to maintain particular types of road infrastructure. This bill expands a regulation-making power already in the act to increase flexibility in assigning management and maintenance responsibilities to the most appropriate authority. The Road Management Act also includes processes that require consent before works can be undertaken in, on or over a public road. This bill makes several improvements to this consent process to make it more effective and to give greater assurances that such works are done in a way that is safe, minimises traffic impacts and does not negatively impact the integrity of the road or limit future works that may deliver improvements such as better road safety outcomes.

Now moving over to the ports, I spoke to my friends at the MUA, the Maritime Union of Australia. The government of course is committed to enhancing safety and improving reliability in Victoria’s commercial ports. This bill will introduce a new licensing requirement for the provision of mooring services in certain commercial ports. For anyone that does not know, mooring is incredibly dangerous. It is an extremely dangerous industry for its workers. We are talking here about the people who literally tie the ships up to the wharves. The mooring lines that tie vessels to their berths can be subject to high tension as well as sudden and unpredictable changes in the tension of the line. Mooring is also a critical part of the operation of a commercial port. The reforms in this bill will allow for Ports Victoria to issue a determination that sets out the standards and requirements for the safe and effective provision of mooring services in a particular commercial port. Anyone that is mooring will require a licence to ensure that all expectations for safety and reliability are met by the operators. Correct licensing for our state’s mooring will improve safety immensely and better the working lives of the people who are the first point of contact in our maritime economy every single day, and it is something that is absolutely welcomed with open arms by the Maritime Union of Australia.

This bill also makes several amendments to the Port Management Act 1995 to enhance the efficiency of local port operations and to help ensure that these important environments are well maintained for future generations. These amendments include improvements to processes for removing abandoned vessels and other things from ports and waterways and clarifying the types of services that local port managers are able to provide. To ensure that processes and requirements are consistent across Victorian legislation, this bill will also amend the Marine Safety Act 2010 to make equivalent changes to those outlined above for local ports, including changes to processes for removing abandoned vessels and other things from waterways.

At its heart this bill is absolutely about safety. It is about making sure that we learn from incidents and use that knowledge to build a safer, smarter transport system for all Victorians. I commend this bill.

Kathleen MATTHEWS-WARD (Broadmeadows) (16:09): I rise in support of the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025. It was great to hear the member for Kororoit’s contribution. Particularly, I learned a lot about mooring ships, and I thank you for that contribution, Luba. This bill is an omnibus bill and contains a range of amendments to transport legislation. As an overview, the bill seeks to keep Victorians safer on our roads by providing Victoria Police with more time to bring proceedings for hit-and-run offences; improving drink and drug driving testing powers by expanding those who can take samples; taking the pressure off police by allowing trained staff to issue infringements from road safety cameras; improving commercial port safety by allowing a new licensing scheme for mooring services; improving oversight of on-road works approvals so they are safer and less disruptive; modernising port and marine laws to help local port managers remove abandoned vessels and maintain clean and accessible waterways; lifting outdated limits on oil spill liabilities so polluters, not taxpayers, pay for clean-up; strengthening no-blame investigations and the protection of sensitive information gathered in such investigations; and other various technical amendments to various acts.

I will speak further on some of the road safety changes in this bill, as the Victorian government has long been a nation-leading, if not world-leading, government committed to improving road safety outcomes. I have also long had an interest in road safety, particularly for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists, children, older people and people with a disability. I have advocated on many occasions in this place for improved safety for these road users within my Broadmeadows electorate, and during my time on council it was always one of my main priorities. I also take this opportunity to give a shout-out to the Walk on Merri-bek group and the Merri-bek Bicycle Users Group and the Hume BUG for all the work they do in advocating for road users and vulnerable road users too. I acknowledge the work done by the parliamentary committee on the inquiry into the safety of vulnerable road users.

Anthony Cianflone interjected.

Kathleen MATTHEWS-WARD: Yes, they did a really great job. I just want to thank you for that really important work. I often use it in my work. It is great. Thank you so much.

Victoria was the first jurisdiction nationally and globally to introduce several key laws, including mandatory seatbelts for drivers and front-seat passengers in 1970. Victoria also introduced random breath testing in 1976, which was a significant step in combating drunk driving, and mandatory helmets for motorcycle riders in 1961. In 1970 Victoria mandated the wearing of seatbelts for drivers and front-seat passengers, a world first. Before that, I remember you could be in the very back of a station wagon, or they would have a bassinet with a baby in it with a net over it so the baby would bounce back into the bassinet if they had an accident. But the pioneering move to have mandatory seatbelts was followed by other Australian states, and it eventually influenced global adoption of seatbelt laws. I have got a cousin who was a Victorian police officer; he travels around the world, and his expertise is well used in other countries to reduce their road toll. It has always been interesting talking to him too.

Victoria introduced random breath testing in 1976, aiming to reduce alcohol-related accidents. This law was also quickly adopted by other Australian states and territories. In 1961 Victoria also became the first jurisdiction globally to make motorcycle helmets mandatory. Reflecting back on this law, it seems almost impossible that it was ever optional to wear one. All of these still remain place today and have been instrumental in the reduction of road deaths, and I am pleased to see further amendments continue to build and keep Victoria at the forefront of safety.

The reforms in this bill will continue to evolve our road safety regulations to improve detection and enforcement of drivers who are doing the wrong thing. Road safety and doing the right thing are important to every Victorian: to make sure those doing the wrong thing are accountable and to keep those doing the right thing safe. The first of the reforms in this bill will provide Victoria Police with an additional 12 months to bring proceedings against a driver who is alleged to have committed a hit-and-run offence that has resulted in a minor injury. Under the Road Safety Act 1986 it is an offence for a driver to fail to stop and give assistance after a traffic accident where a person has been injured or a property has been damaged. More serious hit-and-run offences, where a person has been killed or seriously injured, are classed as indictable offences with significant penalties. Indictable offences also have no limit on how long after an alleged offence charges can be laid and, as such, have an indefinite timeline to find and charge the alleged driver. However, if the alleged hit-and-run accident has only resulted in minor injuries, the offence is then classified as a summary offence, with only a 12-month period after the incident for Victoria Police to commence proceedings. This has proven to be a limiting timeframe in some circumstances. It can take lengthy periods of time to identify who was driving the vehicle at the time of the incident and then go on to locate them. It would be a distressing time for the victim and their family to possibly have no ability to prosecute a driver who had caused them trauma and harm. The reform in this bill will increase the summary offence period from 12 to 24 months to increase the opportunity for the alleged offender to be identified, located and prosecuted.

The bill will also allow for regulations to specify additional health professionals who are able to take blood and urine samples to expand Victoria Police’s ability to detect drink- and drug-impaired drivers. Driving while affected by alcohol or drugs is unfortunately still a major contributing factor to the road toll and serious injuries in Victoria. When police are investigating these offences it can require a blood or urine sample to be obtained to assist in the detection and prosecution of drivers affected by alcohol or drugs. This can only be done by a registered medical practitioner or an approved health professional, which includes nurses and other persons approved by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. The samples must be obtained within 3 hours of the person driving the vehicle, and these requirements can be limiting, especially in incidents late at night or on regional roads, where approved health professionals are not as readily available. The amendment in this bill will allow for additional approved health professionals to be prescribed in regulations. Having access to additional health professionals will improve Victoria Police’s ability to detect drink- and drug-driving offences and continue to serve as a deterrent from driving a vehicle while under the influence.

I would like to acknowledge the role of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in toxicology services for Victoria Police. Work conducted in the lab led to the initiation of the world’s first random drug-testing program in Victoria in 2004, with our state again at the forefront of road safety measures. The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine continues to collaborate with Victoria Police to identify the extent to which drugs and alcohol contribute to road trauma. Their data is vital to the work to increase road safety across our state.

The Victorian government’s Victorian Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030 seeks to halve road deaths by 2030. The strategy’s objectives are:

BE SAFE: Ensure all Victorians are safe and feel safe, on and around our roads.

10 YEAR REDUCTION: Halve road deaths and progressively reduce serious injuries by 2030.

A CULTURE OF SAFETY: Embed a culture of road safety within the Victorian community.

DELIVER INITIATIVES: Deliver a suite of initiatives that are achievable and have an impact in the short-term, but also prepare the state for the future.

The bill confirms the Allan Labor government’s commitment to that strategy, and it is a really important strategy. Road deaths are one thing and have a huge impact on families, but road trauma – we do not often talk about the trauma to families. My dad sustained a spinal injury and was paraplegic, and during his time in rehab he was surrounded by patients affected by vehicle, marine and motorbike accidents. The toll that had on him was incredible, but it also affected everyone around him, and for the next 20 years, the health system as well. That trauma can often be quite life impacting for everyone. Road trauma continues to put a significant burden on our healthcare systems and families. The unnecessary loss of lives from road death continues to rob families of precious time with their loved ones.

The bill will also allow for specially authorised Victoria Police employees to issue infringements for some offences detected by road safety cameras, freeing up sworn officers for other duties. Road safety cameras are an important asset in Victoria Police’s arsenal for detecting road safety offences, and cameras are now used to detect and enforce a range of offences including speeding, red light, seatbelt and distracted driving offences such as using your mobile phone while driving. It still amazes me how often you see drivers with their phone in their hand while driving. I saw many on my way to this place this morning, and we continue to do all we can to enforce safe driving and deter drivers from driving while distracted, particularly our younger drivers, who are less experienced at driving and really quite addicted to their phones, probably like the rest of us.

As the range of driving offences has increased and constantly evolved with the aim of increasing road safety and reducing fatalities, so has the amount of infringements being detected by these cameras. These infringements currently need to be issued by sworn police officers, so the bill will amend the Road Safety Act 1986 to allow for most offences detected by road safety cameras to be issued by specially authorised Victoria Police employees, which will free up Victoria Police officers for other duties. These changes to enforcement practices are great, and I commend the bill to the house.

Alison MARCHANT (Bellarine) (16:19): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025. This bill does make some amendments to quite a few acts, including the Road Safety Act 1986, the Road Management Act 2004, the Ports Management Act 1995, the Marine (Drug, Alcohol and Pollution Control) Act 1988, the Transport Integration Act 2010, the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) Act 1993, the Transport (Safety Schemes Compliance and Enforcement) Act 2014 and the Marine Safety Act 2010.

In my contribution today I want to focus on a couple of things that this bill does, considering they are very important for our state but also very important for my electorate of Bellarine. The bill does make some reforms to the Road Safety Act. In particular, it focuses on a couple of things, improving enforcement practices and requirements by police and also improving the management of road infrastructure, making the consent for works on roads process more efficient, which are two things that are important for my electorate.

I drive quite a bit across the electorate. I like to be out and about in my community and I have put a few k’s on my car, but every day I see risky behaviour on our roads, whether that is someone that is deliberately running a red light, whether someone is speeding or whether that is when you are at the lights waiting and you see people checking their phones. Last year I had the privilege of chairing an inquiry into road safety behaviours, the impact on vulnerable road users post COVID, what behaviours we are seeing since the COVID pandemic and how those risky behaviours have continued or increased – actually they have gotten worse. Anecdotally, police, road experts and the community are saying that they are seeing those risky behaviours increasing and that we are getting more impatient and aggro on the road. What that does is it impacts our most vulnerable road users, which are our pedestrians, our cyclists, our motorcyclists and those who are on horseback, which we still have in regional Victoria. Those people came to our committee inquiry and gave their evidence and experiences of being on the road.

I really remember in the inquiry a young student – I think he might have been from the member for Pascoe Vale’s community – who had really enjoyed being a cyclist during COVID because there were less cars on the road. He was able to get around safely and be outdoors and be active during COVID, and he really enjoyed being a cyclist. He hated it once everything came back to normal, back to reality, in the post-COVID world. He really felt unsafe being a cyclist, and that shows you the real difference that he was experiencing. He talked more about having safe and dedicated trails or shared trails for him to feel safer on the road.

We are seeing a trend that is going in the wrong direction. As of this month we have had 140 lives lost on our Victorian roads; that is up from 125 at the same time last year. Victoria Police have identified and talked about the risky behaviours of speeding, distraction, impaired driving from drugs and alcohol and not wearing a seatbelt. That high-risk driving puts everyone at risk, including the people that are showing the risky behaviour. I saw a recent statistic from Victoria Police that even going 5 kilometres over the limit increases your risk of a crash by 44 per cent. If you then go 10 kilometres over the speed limit, you then double your chances of something happening. Even something that small – you might look down at your speedo and see that you are doing a few k’s over – is enough to increase the chance of something really dangerous happening for you but also for others that might be on the road.

One of the things that this bill particularly talks to is hit-and-run offences. We have heard devastating stories from people who have been injured or traumatised by someone who has caused an incident but then driven away – completely left the scene. I feel like a hit-and-run is more than an offence; it actually feels like almost a betrayal of human decency.

For someone to someone to strike someone and then leave the scene without stopping and without offering help is quite a cowardly act, frankly. That is why with this bill this Victorian government remains steadfast in our commitment to road safety and doing something about that, not only to ensure we prevent harm but that when it does occur we have justice in that. This bill strengthens this. Under the current Road Safety Act it is a criminal offence to fail to stop and render assistance after a crash when someone is injured or property is damaged, but in the case of minor injuries, this is treated as a summary offence, and police currently have only 12 months to identify and prosecute the alleged offender. I think, from experience, that police will tell us that identifying that driver is not always immediately evident and it takes time to do that investigation and piece together evidence to find that person. This bill will extend that window for police to commence proceedings from 12 to 24 months. It is a simple change but a very powerful one. It should make a real difference to being able to identify, locate and, hopefully, prosecute those who thought they could get away with it. It is obviously sending a very clear message that if you do the wrong thing, police will have the time to come and find you.

In addition to the hit-and-run changes that we are making, we are also making some changes around those who engage in the risky behaviour of drink driving, particularly, but also driving under the influence of drugs. It is completely avoidable, doing that. You should be able to get in a car without having anything illegal in your system. To catch those people doing the wrong thing, police often need to get a blood test or a blood sample. Especially if a person is in hospital or unable to do a roadside test, we need to have certain people, health professionals, take that blood sample, and that can sometimes be a problem. This bill does make some amendments. It allows more health professionals to be approved to take these samples, and that means the police will be able to act faster and more effectively to catch those that are driving under the influence. It is an important change that we can make here in this place.

The other one is – I have heard others speak about this part of the bill – we know that road safety cameras also play a huge role in catching people doing the wrong thing. As part of our inquiry we were discussing with police around the new cameras that can catch whether you are not wearing a seatbelt or whether you are looking at your phone while driving, Victorians might have seen them around; I have certainly seen them around in my electorate. They are almost a mobile trailer with a camera overhead, over the road, and you will be caught if you are not wearing your seatbelt or you are looking at your phone. These cameras are detecting more of those types of risky behaviours and they are picking up more offences, so in this bill we have some amendments to make sure that we can have the appropriate people to issue the fines. We will make some changes so it is not just sworn officers that can officiate and give those fines. It means our frontline police, obviously, can focus on the other things that they are trained to be doing.

This is a really important piece of legislation that we are debating today. There is a whole lot more in this. I did want to speak about ports, but I am not going to have time to be able to do that today. I have local ports in my electorate, and we are making some changes just to make sure that it is clear for the authorities who look after our local ports, and I thank them for doing that. Really at the heart of this bill is making sure that we have a transport and marine system that puts safety first, that strengthens our communities’ trust in this and that protects our environments. I commend the bill to the house.

Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (16:29): I am rising to support the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters Bill) 2025. Just like I said in my inaugural speech, as a proud, long-time member of the Transport Workers’ Union but also as the local member now for Pascoe Vale, Coburg and Brunswick West, with so many more young families moving to the area, I am absolutely committed to doing everything I can – like you are, Acting Speaker Lambert – to improve road safety across our community for vulnerable road users. This bill will help us achieve that through a number of legislative amendments to improve safety, achieve operational and administrative efficiencies and improve the effectiveness of many and several of our transport laws.

Number one, when it comes to hit-and-runs, the bill will provide for improved enforcement of road safety offences by amending the various provisions and offences in the Road Safety Act 1986 to support investigation and enforcement. Under the Road Safety Act 1986 it is an offence for a driver to fail to stop and render assistance after a traffic accident where someone is injured or property is damaged. These offences are commonly known of course, as I said, as hit-and-runs. There are two categories of penalties for these offences. If a person is killed or seriously injured, the act of failing to stop and render assistance is an indictable offence with significant penalties, including up to 10 years imprisonment. The second category of offences covers incidents that result in minor injuries. These are summary offences and have lesser penalties. Summary offences also come with a 12-month period after the incident in which Victoria Police can commence proceedings. This limitation, however, has been proven to be insufficient in some cases because it takes time to investigate and identify who was driving the vehicle at the time of the alleged offence. This bill will extend the time that Victoria Police have to bring a proceeding for this summary offence from 12 months up to 24 months to increase the likelihood that the alleged offender can be identified, located and prosecuted.

Secondly, this bill will also take action on drug driving. We know that driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs is a major contributing factor to the road toll and serious injuries in Victoria. Part 5 of the Road Safety Act 1986 contains alcohol- and drug-related offences to reduce this risk. When detecting these offences in a range of circumstances, a blood sample must be obtained, which can be only done by a registered medical practitioner or an approved health professional, which includes a nurse and other persons approved by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. This blood sample must be obtained within 3 hours of the person driving the vehicle, and in practice Victoria Police can in some circumstances find it difficult to conduct the necessary impairment assessment and find a registered medical practitioner or approved health professional to take that blood sample. The amendment in this bill will allow for additional professionals to be prescribed as approved health professionals for the purpose of obtaining these blood samples, improving Victoria Police’s ability to detect drink and drug driving offences.

Thirdly, the road safety camera and fines reforms contained in this bill will also help to support us across the state and locally. A range of offences in the Road Safety Act 1986 also seek to reduce injuries and fatalities across the roads through these measures. Some of these offences detected by way of prescribed road safety cameras include speed, red-light, seatbelt and distracted driving offences. The range of offences detected by these cameras has expanded, as we know, in recent years, and sworn police officers are required to issue infringements for these offences. This bill will amend the Road Safety Act 1986 to allow for specifically authorised Victoria Police employees to be able to issue infringements for these offences, freeing up sworn police officers for other duties, and Victoria Police employees would need to be authorised in writing by the Chief Commissioner of Police before they can issue these types of infringements.

Fourthly, there is increased flexibility for the management of road assets and improved processes for roadworks. The Road Management Act 2004 provides the statutory framework for the management of Victoria’s roads. This framework establishes the coordinated road management system for public roads, which includes the clear allocation of responsibilities between coordinating road authorities and responsible road authorities. Section 37 of the act of 2004 specifies which public body is the responsible road authority for roads and road infrastructure – for example, roadway or pathway structures forming part of a roadway or pathway and road-related infrastructure like traffic lights and streetlights. This bill expands the regulation-making power in that section so that regulations will be able to specify the responsible road authority for particular types of road infrastructure that form part of a roadway and allows us to better delineate those responsibilities, including, for example, where municipal roads go over rail bridges, which by default become the responsibility of council. But we know the Department of Transport and Planning, VicTrack and other entities will be more appropriately suited to address those maintenance issues.

Also, when it comes to roads, we know these reforms will continue to play a vital role in improving road safety. The Victorian Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030 sets out our ambitious goal of eliminating death from our roads by 2050, with the first step of halving road deaths by 2023, by focusing on enforcing safer driver behaviour, removing unsafe vehicles from our roads, better supporting vulnerable and unprotected road users, improving safety along high-speed corridors, reducing risks at intersections, improving safety for those who use the roads for work, namely transport workers, and recognising the importance of post-crash care. However, we know that the leading causes of road fatalities, crashes and incidents continue to be associated with poor driver behaviour in the form of travelling over the speed limit, aggressive driving, driver distractions, drink driving, drug driving, not wearing a seatbelt and driving while fatigued. They all remain the leading contributing factors to our road toll, road crashes and close calls.

In that respect I continue to draw the Parliament’s and the minister’s attention to the Economy and Infrastructure Committee’s inquiry into the impact of road safety behaviours on vulnerable road users, which I was proudly a part of with the member for Bellarine, which put forward 61 findings and 56 recommendations, including:

Recommendation 5: The Department of Transport and Planning revise its Speed Zoning Policy to streamline changes to speed limits on a case‑by‑case basis.

Recommendation 6: The Department of Transport and Planning review the Speed Zoning Technical Guidelines with a view to minimising suburban rat running and reducing speed limits around school precincts and on arterial roads with activity centres.

I know this is of great interest to you as well, Acting Speaker.

Recommendation 16: The Victorian Government develop an awareness campaign on the avenues available to report dangerous driving incidents.

…

Recommendation 12: The Department of Transport and Planning trial the use of Variable Message Sign boards in high‑risk locations to increase compliance with road rules and remind drivers to check their behaviour.

…

Recommendation 27: The Department of Transport and Planning review arterial roads to ensure there are regular pedestrian crossings linked to public transport stops, activity centres and schools.

And I will touch on some examples in a moment. And recommendation 48:

The Victorian Government work with councils to improve traffic calming measures around school precincts to encourage more parents to allow their children to walk or ride to school.

Along with this bill’s reforms, it is the recommendations of this parliamentary inquiry that will clearly help make our roads and neighbourhoods safer.

In this respect, in my local community we have been undertaking quite a number of projects to improve road safety. We have removed the four dangerous level crossings along the Upfield line in Coburg. We have introduced the active transport corridor through Coburg as well. The Gaffney Street upgrades are under construction as we speak between Cumberland and Pascoe Vale roads. The Derby Street active transport corridor has been delivered. The Bell Street bridge for Coburg High that we have worked so furiously on with the member for Northcote has been implemented. The safer speed zone – Nicholson Street has had $1.2 million committed to it to be made safer. Melville Road is having a holistic review undertaken, with the likelihood, the department has said, of reducing the speed limit to 50 kilometres and a new 40-kilometre school zone for St Joseph’s Primary and Brunswick North West Primary kids for the first time on that corridor. And we have helped improve Albion Street as well between Citylink and Moreland Road, with some funding for raised pedestrian crossings.

But there is more to do, Acting Speaker, as we know, the first of which is Murray Road in North Coburg, which adjoins our two respective electorates, following at least a dozen serious local road crash incidents this year since January. Residents continue to call for and support new measures, including safer speeds such as reducing the standard variable speed limit from 60 to 50 at a minimum and introducing safer school speed zones through the corridor of 40 kilometres, including between Stockade Avenue and College Boulevard, where a lot of the Coburg High kids tend to cross from Coburg pool down to Coburg Lake – I am still calling for and we still welcome the minister’s consideration of that – new measures for better provision of cyclists, pedestrians and vulnerable road users and of course better signage, infrastructure and enforcement along the corridor. Queen Street along the Moreland Road corridor remains a priority, especially following the recent fatality of a vulnerable road user on 15 May on the corner of the Gordon Street intersection. I do extend my condolences and sympathies to the family that continue to be impacted by that incident. Locals continue to particularly call for a new pedestrian crossing about 200 metres further up at the Queen Street intersection. Coburg West Primary has written to me today saying:

We are writing to express our support for the installation of a dedicated pedestrian crossing on Moreland Rd close to … Queen Street.

… sadly families within our school community were recently impacted by the death of a pedestrian within 200m of the intersection … we feel strongly that action needs to be taken before anyone else is killed or injured…

It is the same for St Fidelis Primary, which has also written to me, on 4 June, about this issue:

Many of our St Fidles students and families regularly cross this busy section of Moreland Road to access local shops, public transport, walking and riding routes to and from school.

We share the growing concern of our families and community members regarding the dangers posed by this section of road, particularly at peak school times. The safety of our children and families must be a shared community priority.

And Bell Street along Elm Grove and Urquhart Street near Coburg Primary School remains a priority. On the evening of 6 May a motorbike rider was tragically killed in a collision with a car along this section, and while the matter continues to be investigated, locals inform me it continues to highlight the need for road safety improvements for the area, namely via a holistic review which they asked the Department of Transport and Planning to undertake to help improve road safety in and around that corridor, particularly for Coburg Primary families. I just want to again acknowledge the parents leading a lot of that work, Jacob Kantor, the president of the school council, and Emma Burrows, who is advocating on this issue as well.

It is on that note that I commend the bill very much, because improving road safety is extremely important, especially for inner-city communities like ours with so many more young families moving to the area.

Michaela SETTLE (Eureka) (16:39): I am delighted to rise to speak in support of the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025. This bill comes from the office of a great minister. Every time I speak on one of her bills, I am always struck by the commitment that she has to all of our communities and all of Victoria. Of course this is a really important bill. It is easy to look at it and talk about it as being a sort of omnibus bill, as those on the other side may describe it, but in fact the very heart of this is around making local roads safe.

Before I get there, I would just like to perhaps address some of the contributions from the other side. I note that in fact they have put forward an amendment around the ‘stop the clock’ clause. I have no doubt there will be a lot of discussion this evening about whether they stop the clock or they do not stop the clock. I know that they will be discussing it amongst themselves, all 19 of them – whether or not they are able to stop the clock.

Cindy McLeish: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Eureka said that we put forward an amendment, but there is no amendment before this house at this moment.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): There is no point of order. The member for Eureka to continue.

Michaela SETTLE: Of course it is not going today; it is going up to the Legislative Council – an amendment. I imagine that will give you even greater cause to spend the rest of tonight discussing stopping the clock. Who is the clock counting down on? That is what we all need to ask ourselves. With this amendment, what is really interesting is that they want to change the stopping of the clock. Now, if I can just bring us to the bill, prior to this bill the situation was that any applications would have to be rejected outright or there was deemed consent. We are changing that to find a more middle ground than deemed consent. Some are keen on stopping the clock, and others would like to see it continue to tick away. But we on this side always look for the sensible middle ground, and indeed that is the position that this bill takes.

What ‘stop the clock’ is really about is saying if an applicant needs more time to do a thorough deep dive, then we will not just throw the baby out with the bathwater; we will give them the time to look more deeply. Instead of just rejecting the application or perhaps what has been used in the past, which is deemed consent – some may consider that deemed consent is even worse because it allows the work to go ahead, where we know that the really safe way to manage this is to give extra time and indeed to stop the clock. I think it would be fair to say that all of us on this side of the house do support stopping the clock. We think that the clock should be stopped, and support should be given to those who need it.

As I said, this is a very important bill. It is basically, at heart, about keeping people safe. It is about keeping people safe on our roads, at our ports and within our communities. It is a wideranging bill, but every change in it is thoughtful, practical and driven by real-world challenges. I know that the minister and all in her office have given deep consideration to these changes to ensure that they really do deliver the best possible safety outcomes for all of our communities. This bill, whether it is about helping Victoria Police catch hit-and-run drivers, keeping our ports safe or making sure local roads are maintained by the right authority, is about doing the work that keeps Victoria moving. It keeps Victoria safe. And of course every Victorian deserves to feel safe on the road.

When there is a crash, especially if someone is hurt, it is not just common decency to stop and help, it is the law. But for minor injuries, police only have 12 months to begin proceedings, and that is often not enough time to get the deep work that they need to do done.

So this bill will present a solution. Those of us on this side of the house like to find solutions and make sure that we are delivering for Victoria. This bill comes up with a very good solution, which is to double that window to 24 months. I am sure there are many on the other side of the house that would like to see those windows doubled as well. As they are looking at the clock ticking down, they are wondering if there is any chance to have that window doubled.

The bill also looks at strengthening drug and alcohol testing. We know that drink and drug driving is still one of the biggest killers on our roads. It is heartbreaking to see the impact that this can have on our communities. When someone is impaired police need to act fast, but sometimes they cannot get a blood sample within the required 3-hour window. I think getting that blood test within those 3 hours is probably even more relevant in the regions. This change allows for more professionals to collect those samples using 2000 collection clinics across the state, and that will mean that we will have faster testing, stronger enforcement and of course safer roads.

Just look at some sobering statistics in Ballarat. There was a road safety blitz over the Easter and Anzac weekends, and the Ballarat Times reported that there were over 246,000 breath tests and 5000 drug tests. What was distressing really was looking at the results of that: 46 per cent of impaired drivers had consumed alcohol, 43 per cent had taken drugs and 11 per cent were impaired by both. It is a pretty sobering thought, if you will excuse the pun, that someone behind the wheel is impaired by both drugs and alcohol.

Making our roads safer in this regard is incredibly important, and it is really about freeing up police resources. We hear so much from the other side about our wonderful police force. Just in question time today, again, there was some suggestion that they do not do their work, and those of us –

Members interjecting.

Michaela SETTLE: There was indeed. It was about there being no criminal convictions, which is nothing but a derogation-of-duty suggestion, I would say. But of course those on this side believe that we should properly resource our police force. I believe it was the other side who cut the police force band. How low can you go to cut the police force band?

Cindy McLeish: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Eureka needs to be factual. She is incorrect.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): Member for Eildon, that is not a point of order.

Members interjecting.

Michaela SETTLE: Well, you cut the police force band, not us.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Eureka will return to her remarks.

Michaela SETTLE: I just want to go back to the bill, finally, and talk about the fact that this is really about keeping our communities safe. It is about freeing up resources for our police force so they can get on and do the absolutely sterling job that they do. There are also in the bill issues around mooring of ships. As someone who is landlocked in my electorate, it is something that I know less about, but certainly I understand the importance of resourcing our police force.

I will just finally go back to speaking on the proposed amendment, which I believe we have been told will go through the LC. As I said earlier, there seems to be some objection around the ‘stop the clock’ rulings, and I find that really interesting. Some on the other side want to stop the clock and some on the other side want to see that clock run down, and it comes as no surprise to me that many on the other side will spend this evening looking at that clock ticking and wondering whether they can stop the clock or not or seek deeming consent.

Steve McGHIE (Melton) (16:49): It is always a pleasure to contribute to the debate after my great colleague from Eureka, and it was very well done. I rise to contribute to the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025. The bill will deliver a range of changes to improve safety and improve the effectiveness of transport laws by amending the Road Safety Act 1986, the Road Management Act 2004, the Port Management Act 1995, the Marine (Drug, Alcohol and Pollution Control) Act 1988 and the Transport Integration Act 2010. This will improve law enforcement practices to improve road safety outcomes, and it also addresses known safety risks to commercial port workers. It will improve the management of certain road infrastructure projects and implement a range of other technical amendments to improve our transport legislation.

Before I continue I just want to give a shout-out to our VicPol members and the great work that they do in trying to keep all Victorians safe on the road. It is a very hard task at times, but they do a fantastic job. In particular in my electorate of Melton, again, there is great work that VicPol members do, and I thank them for that.

Also, I noticed some of the opposition contributions were going on about the state of our roads. I want to make reference to three road situations in Melton that have improved enormously just in the last six to 12 months. One is the intersection of Coburns Road and High Street. Now it is a lighted intersection with additional lanes and turning lanes. It used to be a big roundabout. It is the biggest intersection in Melton – all the traffic was sort of herded in that direction – and it has just made it so safe. I would think already there has been a huge reduction in motor vehicle accidents at that intersection, even though it has been open only six months. Another one is at Norton Drive and High Street – again, another lighted intersection. It used to be a give-way sign coming out of Norton Drive onto High Street, which is very busy. Again, it is now a lighted intersection, which has made it much, much safer for the community of Melton. The other one is that both the state and federal governments have committed to a $20 million business case to upgrade the Western Freeway between Melton and Caroline Springs. I am pleased to say that the Albanese government has committed $1.1 billion to start the upgrade, and the Department of Transport and Planning are already getting underway on where we are going to start that program. It is a massive program, and it is essential that the Western Freeway will be upgraded due to about 113,000 vehicles that travel along that corridor every day. A lot of people in Melton call it the Melton car park. We will get it done over the next few years, which will be fantastic for that western corridor.

The other thing I want to make reference to is there were a number of opposition speakers making inferences that the state of some of our roads was in direct relationship to the increased volume of fatalities on the road. I do not accept that at all. I am not saying that some road conditions do not contribute to some vehicle incidents and fatalities, but there are many, many other factors. I will go to some of those other factors in a minute. I just had a look at the interstate stats about road fatalities this year compared to last year. Every other state bar the territory of the Northern Territory has had massive increases of road fatalities. New South Wales alone has gone from 150 fatalities this time last year to 173, so they have had a 15.3 per cent increase. South Australia has had a 9 per cent increase. Queensland remained pretty close to the same. Western Australia has had a 6 per cent increase, going from 87 deaths on the road to 92, and Tasmania has had an almost 80 per cent increase. So I do not know what the opposition think in regard to road conditions and whether they think that it is only Victoria that is in the situation we have got of increased fatalities. But there are many, many factors for why people have vehicle accidents, and unfortunately in some of those vehicle accidents people are killed.

Throughout my time in ambulances I saw many, many horrific road accidents and many, many horrific injuries and deaths through road accidents, and a lot of that was caused by drug- and alcohol-affected drivers. It is very common for drivers and passengers not to use seatbelts, for whatever the reasons are that people choose not to use seatbelts now. It seems on the increase since COVID, and I have no idea why people are choosing not to wear seatbelts. It is just incredible. High speed is another issue, and again, since COVID we are seeing people driving far more aggressively and at higher speeds.

This is leading to greater injury and a greater number of deaths. We can see in the numbers since 1970 there is about a 50 per cent reduction in the chance of death or serious injury if you are wearing a seatbelt. Again, people are choosing not to wear seatbelts. To some degree they are causing their own outcomes, but they are just some of the things.

When I started as a paramedic, I saw some of the changes. In many vehicles it was not compulsory to wear seatbelts. People were going through windscreens. They were hitting their head on the steering column. Now we have airbags, and the compulsory wearing of seatbelts has stopped a lot of that. People flying out of vehicles because of the rollovers and things like that, you do not see that sort of thing any more. That does not mean to say people will survive, but they have greater chances of survival if they comply with the road rules and if they comply with wearing seatbelts and things like that.

Drugs, drink driving, speed, wearing seatbelts, distraction – the key one for that is mobile phones. If I had my way, I would ban mobile phones being in the cabin of vehicles. I would be putting them in the boot. With these modern cars now you can do it on the screen, you do not need to be holding your phone. I do not see why we need to have a phone inside the car. I think it is absolutely crazy. One of the greatest factors, and you will find it coming out through research, that is causing incidents on the road is fatigue. We are all living busy lives now and we are all getting less sleep, and it is a major factor leading to these incidents on the road.

Road safety reforms in this bill represent a continued focus on identifying areas where our road safety regulatory framework can be adjusted to improve our enforcement, to deter drivers from doing the wrong thing and to better detect those drivers that are doing that wrong thing. We know driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs is a major contributing factor to both the road toll and serious injuries. And again, it is pretty simple: do not drink and drive, do not take drugs and drive, wear your seatbelt, do not be distracted by a mobile phone and make sure that you are properly rested. If people start to do that, then we will have less incidents on the roads.

When the police suspect someone is impaired they often need to take a blood or urine sample to confirm it, but those samples must be taken within 3 hours of the vehicle incident. Currently those tests can only be done by a select group of health professionals, and of course if the right person is not available at the time, within those 3 hours, then that evidence and the chance to hold someone accountable may go by the wayside. This bill will change that. It gives VicPol the flexibility to access 2000-plus collection clinics across Victoria when seeking qualified health professionals to take a blood sample, which is great.

A range of other offences in the Road Safety Act 1986 also seek to reduce injuries and fatalities on Victoria’s roads, and some of these offences are detected by way of road safety cameras. I know everyone seems to think that these cameras are just revenue collectors, but they are not. They do slow people down, and there is no doubt about that. But it is not only about slowing people down; there are the red-light cameras and the distracted driving offences. You will be on camera if you are using your mobile phone. Again, these are things that you should not be doing – you are breaking the law. People need to be detected because we have got to keep other people safe on the roads. If you want to disobey the road rules, then you need to suffer the consequences, and of course these cameras do a great –

A member: 30 seconds.

Steve McGHIE: 30 seconds to go? Okay. Do you want to get on, do you?

A member interjected.

Steve McGHIE: Okay. Look, it is a really important bill. The great member for Point Cook I think wants to get up for the last 30 seconds, so I commend the bill to the house.

Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (16:59): I would say thank you to all the workers who did their job on the Point Cook Road and Sneydes Road intersection. It is amazing, the transformation of that area, the improved safety, the saving in travel time. But on that safety – so many people have had crashes there, fortunately mainly minor. It is a great thing that this government has done to support the community that I represent.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The time set down for consideration of items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Third reading

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.