Thursday, 30 October 2025

 Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (17:12): (1379) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the minister to make a submission to the Commonwealth’s regulatory impact analysis to reduce the open road default speed limit. What I would like to see is the minister assure Victorians that the government will not be supporting a default reduction in speed limits on country roads. The regulatory impact analysis, which is out there from the federal government, would inform updates to the Australian road rules, and those Australian road rules can then provide guidelines to state and territory governments. So this is only one step in a process, but I am concerned, and I am sure my colleagues are concerned, at the prospect of a reduction in default road speed limits, particularly on country roads but effectively on roads outside built-up areas. These are the areas where there is no speed limit actually posted. We understand the issue that speed kills, and we understand that there are a significant number of fatalities and serious injury incidents that are caused by speed, but we do not believe that the solution to that is actually simply setting a further reduced default speed limit on those roads.

There is already a level of concern, particularly in regional Victoria, about the current state government’s approach to this, which has been – not only in practice but also in principle in response to a parliamentary inquiry a few years ago – that where the road is not in good condition, the speed limit should be reduced. The very strong will of the people that I speak to in regional Victoria is to say, ‘Where the road’s not in good condition, fix the road. Don’t reduce the speed limit.’ While we appreciate there are capacity constraints, funding constraints and all of those things, we would not like to see a standard change to this under the proposed federal Australian road rules. I think the people of rural and regional Victoria would like to hear the minister stand up on this and give a position. It may well be that the government has already made a submission; I am not privy to that. But we do not believe that simply reducing default speed limits is an appropriate solution.

There are many things that can be done to ensure that we are reducing speed accidents. We know that our vehicles are getting safer. The governments over the previous 20 or 30 years have spent a lot of money on road infrastructure to make it safer, but the roads themselves, particularly in the last four or five years, have deteriorated dramatically. That should not be a reason in itself to reduce speed limits, and I do not think most regional Victorians would support the Victorian government supporting a reduction in the default speed limit under these new proposed Australian road rules.