Thursday, 6 February 2020

Road Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms NEVILLE:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Mr FREGON (Mount Waverley) (16:40): I rise to speak on the Road Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019. Thank you to all my colleagues for their excellent contributions.

We all use and rely upon our roads every day to get us from A to B. Whether it be for commercial, public or private use, we all share our roads, and we should be able to expect that all of us on the roads will obey the rules of those roads. Now, for minor indiscretions—which I am sure most of us have done—fines are appropriate, and we should behave ourselves. But for serious offences our community expects tougher treatment.

It is very pleasing to me to see that this bill will ensure that the very small percentage of our road users who ignore or forget their responsibilities and are a danger to all of us on the roads are treated with the severity of response that our community expects. Last year was a devastating year on Victorian roads, and so it is good to see that we are once again giving our police the resources they need. We rely upon the safety of our roads to ensure the safety of our families and our community.

I would like to congratulate the Minister for Police and Emergency Services on the significant work that has been done to take those who put members of our community at risk off the roads. I would also take the opportunity to thank the Minister for Roads and Minister for Road Safety and the TAC in the other place for her important work in this area. Once again, in regard to the Transport Accident Commission, a nod to the Honourable John Cain and his wonderful work in that area and for bringing it in.

The government’s 2019–20 Community Safety Statement has set five priorities to make Victoria safer. These five priorities can be seen in this bill, mostly in the three areas of reducing harm, putting victims first and holding offenders to account. If any member of our community commits excessive speeding offences or other serious road offences, or causes injury with a motor vehicle or murder with a motor vehicle, their licence will be immediately suspended, and they will be off the road, as they should be.

The minister mentioned two individuals in her speech, Chloe Dickman and Jeynelle Dean-Hayes, for their dedication to these changes, and I also thank them for their advocacy. I think it is worth pointing out that every individual on our roads has a family, friends and workmates. Last year we lost 266 people, and the TAC figure on the website is actually reported as ‘lives lost’. I think any of us who heard about the horrific tragedy in New South Wales last weekend could not but be moved by the senseless loss of life for those families. I have three children, and I could not even begin to imagine the depth of loss that that family is dealing with right now. So I think that, as well as thinking about lives lost, we should also think about lives changed forever.

I can remember in 1996 when I was driving to work—I was working at BHP at the time—hearing on the radio about Melbourne and Hawthorn merging, which I was not happy about as a Hawks fan. And over the radio came an announcement that a driver in Frankston had gone through an intersection straight into a petrol station, had hit a kombi van and had squashed the man who was filling up his petrol at a bowser at the time between the kombi van and the petrol bowser. Immediately that blew up, and the driver was killed instantly. I remember that like it was yesterday, because I remember thinking at the time while waiting to park, ‘My cousin lives in Frankston, and he drives a kombi van’. I just had a sense that it was him. It was one of these feelings you get when you just think something has happened and you think, ‘No, no, no, it’s just silly’. So I parked the car, which took a little while, and it kept nagging at me. And I just thought, ‘I’ve got to check; I’ve got to get it off my mind’. I rang my mother, his aunty, and she answered the phone. And she was in tears. So my cousin David Brice died on our roads. He was not even on the road; he was in a petrol station.

I do not know if the driver that crossed that intersection and went into that petrol station was speeding. I do not know if he ran a red light, and I do not know if he was drunk or on drugs. I do not know, and I do not want to know, because if those things turned out to be true it would make it worse. What I would want to know is that that driver who caused that mayhem, that grief, that permanent sorrow, in the family of my cousins and my aunty, would not have their licence at this moment—and that is what this bill does. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr ANGUS (Forest Hill) (16:46): I will just make a very brief contribution in relation to the Road Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019. I want to note, as I start, the powerful story that was just shared by the member for Mount Waverley, and I commend him for sharing that with the house. I think there would not be a person, probably, in this building that has not been affected adversely by some road trauma of some description over their journey. As the member was just saying, we have got tragic situations on a regular basis—far too regular.

I think as a community we look back at 2019 and we see the horrendously high road toll. Despite the best efforts of the community, despite the best efforts of the police and the law enforcement bodies and other agencies, we are still seeing this. There is no doubt that as a community we have got to improve in that area, and there are a number of ways that that can be achieved. I think that continuing to bring the road safety issue before this place and certainly before the community more generally is an important responsibility.

I think it has been disappointing to see that the committee that used to look after that area here in the Parliament was scrapped by the government—the Road Safety Committee. We have talked about that in previous debates, and there has been much reminiscing over the excellent work that that committee did over a very, very long period of time, including of course one of the key reforms in the whole area of road safety, and that is the introduction of seatbelts. I think that is a real disappointment for the Parliament. I think it is a disappointment for the community to have had that committee so unceremoniously scrapped.

Notwithstanding that, as I said, some of the recent events that we have seen here in Victoria are just heartbreaking. Some of the events that we have seen in other jurisdictions as well are indeed heartbreaking. As I said at the very start, most of us have been touched; I certainly have been. When I was back in my 20s, a very good friend of mine and his new wife were killed on the Hume Highway in a head-on motor vehicle accident—four people killed. It was just one of those totally shocking things that comes out of nowhere. I will never forget where I was when I got the phone call that that had happened, the aftermath of that and the impact on those families. I do not think you ever really recover.

I suppose that is one of the things that would be great to be able to get through to some of the younger people, particularly, that drive so carelessly. All of us are out on the roads, and we see people driving carelessly. We see people speeding, but probably, as the police would concur, the biggest issue we see these days is people fooling around on their mobile phones, texting. I was up on the Hume Highway myself recently, in the Victorian section, and I looked across and I saw a bloke moving from side to side in his lane and I thought, ‘He’s either not feeling well or there’s something wrong with his car’. Then I saw his head go down and I thought, ‘That’s what it is. He’s on his jolly phone’. I think the young ones have got to get an understanding, particularly—not just exclusively the young drivers, but certainly the young drivers have got to get an understanding—of the consequence of taking your eyes off the road when you are powering a motor vehicle down that road, whether it is like this guy was, at 110 kilometres an hour or, as it could be in any side street, at 50 or 60 or 40 kilometres an hour. The distance you travel and the physics that are involved—people just do not understand that.

I think we need to be trying to bring in some more education at the school level. Even this morning I was sitting in my office here in Parliament and my electorate office called me and said there had been another motor vehicle accident out the front of my office on Canterbury Road. We have that all too often: people doing silly things, people distracted, people not judging distance properly—speed over distance—and just lapses of judgement. And so that is the second one we have had in the vicinity of my office in a week, which is thankfully unusual and atypical, but that is one little section—a few hundred metres—of Canterbury Road just near my office. Thankfully no-one was injured seriously, either, so that was okay. The consequences of that—if you are going faster, if you bounce off then into crowds, or whatever else happens—are very, very serious.

In conclusion, the importance of road safety here in Victoria—I mean, we have done marvellously well. I can remember as a boy when the road toll was 1034. I think it was in 1974—1034.

A member interjected.

Mr ANGUS: Yes, that is it: ‘Declare War on 1034’. I can remember that. I was pretty young at the time, but I can still remember it. To think that we have sadly had a record high level in recent years—last year—we have all got work to do. We have all got work to do ourselves. We have all got work to do with our families—our children, if we have got children that are driving—and our other relatives to do all we can to keep all Victorians, other drivers, motorists and pedestrians safe on our roads.

Mr EREN (Lara) (16:52): I too wish to make a contribution on this very important bill before the house, the Road Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019. Can I just say these are some of the bills that come before the house which are really sad. I just want to read out some stats in terms of fatalities that have occurred since 2014. In 2014, 248 people perished due to traffic accidents; in 2015, 252; in 2016, 290; in 2017, 259; in 2018, 213; and in 2019, 266. That is a total of 1528 lives since 2014. Those are lives that were associated with families, to mothers, to fathers, to uncles and to children. These are lives that have been lost unnecessarily in some cases, unfortunately.

We as a government have made improvements on road safety. There is no question of that. Being the former chair of the Road Safety Committee between 2006 and 2010, I know we made some very important recommendations to government in relation to wanting to reduce the road toll. One of those things that we as a government back then did was to introduce a technology into cars that are registered in this state. Every passenger car that is registered in the state must have ESC and side curtain airbags—electronic stability control and side curtain airbags. Those technologies were very expensive at the time, but because of the large uptake of these technologies they have become quite affordable and now every single car has them, which is fantastic. As a result of having electronic stability control in the vehicle we save 100 lives every year; it prevents run-off-road crashes.

Of course technology has advanced dramatically. I think we are not that far away from autonomous vehicles, driverless vehicles, when you consider that even my car has lane departure warning, adaptable cruise control and of course brake assist, which helps drivers. In case they are not paying attention to the road, the car actually takes over and brakes for them. When you consider the amount of lives being lost—unfortunately we did have an increased number of lives lost on our roads last year on the previous year, and distraction is a big part of it. There is no question about that. Speeding, distraction, alcohol in your system and drugs in your system are all contributors—mainly—to the fatalities that occur on our roads. As a government we need to make sure that we do what we can to prevent them. There are some carrots in terms of incentives. If you drive decently and properly you can have a reduced fee for your licence if you have not incurred a speeding fine. But there needs to be a stick. If you do break the law in a way that jeopardises not only your own life when you are driving but the lives of others on the road, then we need to bring out the stick—and that is exactly what this legislation is—to ensure that we reduce the road toll.

I know there is another speaker after me, and I want to give her the opportunity. This is a bill that will hopefully have an impact on reducing our road toll. That is why I am so supportive of bills before the house such as this, and I am sure that the opposition are as well. I commend the bill to the house and wish it a speedy passage.

Ms SULEYMAN (St Albans) (16:56): I rise to speak on the Road Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019. This bill demonstrates the Andrews Labor government’s commitment to taking dangerous drivers off our roads. It is one of many actions that we have taken, and we are serious about making sure that Victoria is safer for all. We are making sure that high-speed hoons and dangerous drivers will be faced with tougher new reforms thanks to this bill.

We have all been affected one way or another when it comes to deaths on our roads. I will never forget the time that my cousin who died through no fault of his own, very young—at the age of 20—coming back from work. I will never forget the moment that I heard the news, two weeks out from his wedding, and turning up to the morgue in the city with his parents to identify his body. The chill of that morgue and that moment just stayed with me. To see the family and that whole community change and their lives affected for ever is something that really affected me and my family.

I urge all drivers to be safe on the roads. If they are not safe, if they want to be irresponsible, they are not only being irresponsible with their own lives but irresponsible with innocent lives on our roads. We have just seen the reports of what happened in Sydney recently with the tragic and horrific deaths of those four children. It breaks my heart seeing the family and the community unite in such grief, again through no fault of their own.

I commend this bill. We do not want any further deaths. We saw too many last year. We do know that taking tough action does actually work. Those who want to speed when affected by alcohol or drugs and hoon around will have their licences suspended and the full force of the law upon them.

We have heard some fantastic contributions today in this house when it comes to making sure that our roads are safer. One thing that I do want to point out is that we have invested close to $1.4 billion in new safety features on our roads. That includes infrastructure and a particular structure in my electorate is the Taylors Road and Kings Road roundabout. I note the member for Sydenham is in the house as well. We campaigned on this heavily with the member for Kororoit to make sure that we have safe traffic signals and of course safer pedestrian access. This particular road is used by 40 000 motorists each day as well as pedestrians.

I do need to note the dangerous level crossing at Main Road, St Albans, which took the lives of 16 people. Thanks to our government we were able to remove this as our first-year commitment in 2014. That is 16 lives too many. This included removing the Furlong Road level crossing, which saw more than three deaths. We are really committed to making sure that our roads are safe, not only for motorists but also for pedestrians. We will continue with our investment projects that this year will include the removal of the Fitzgerald Road level crossing in Ardeer and the crossing at Robinsons Road and Mt Derrimut Road in Deer Park.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Dimopoulos): 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 ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Dimopoulos): The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.