Thursday, 12 May 2022

Bills

Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms PULFORD:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (10:37): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution on the Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, noting this bill has come through the Assembly. It is a bill that the coalition will not oppose, but we will seek to amend and improve the bill dealing with the matter of road safety.

The primary objectives of the bill are to enable better enforcement of distracted driving and seatbelt-wearing offences by giving evidential status to images from new types of road safety cameras and to add to the list of serious offences that Victoria Police may use to trigger immediate licence suspension and disqualification where charges are laid under the Road Safety Act 1986. The bill is also intended to alter the traffic accident scheme by making various amendments to the Transport Accident Act 1986.

I want to make a few points here. Much of this is not material that the opposition disagrees with, so I just want to be clear about a good deal of that. The government conducted a trial of artificial intelligence technology to detect usage of mobile phones and incorrect usage of seatbelts. The trial ran for three months. It scanned over 600 000 motorists, finding one in 42 to be using mobile phones. The government is now seeking to provide evidential status to the new cameras and begin penalising motorists from early in 2023.

This forms part of the government’s road safety strategy to reduce the road toll. Again, we see value in some of the points that the government is raising here and some of the measures that are proposed, but we will make further points about road safety, adding to the list of serious offences that may trigger Victoria Police on-the-spot licence suspension, which allows for more consistency in the legislation. Previously individuals involved in hit-and-run incidents could have their licences revoked of course on the spot, and correctly so, by Victoria Police.

The Transport Accident Act has been amended to ensure drivers convicted of manslaughter, murder or culpable driving will not be able to receive death benefits if they survive and are charged with the aforementioned offences. While this is very likely a rare circumstance, it guarantees that someone who kills their partner and is charged will not be eligible to receive financial compensation from the TAC, where they were in fact previously able to access that point. The bill also allows for compensation to be paid to cyclists who suffer harm as a result of the opening of a car door and makes provisions for the protection of privacy as well.

So again, in many of these areas, whilst there may be some layer of concern in certain spots, we in general support the government’s steps here. I think the TAC change is something that people have different reactions to. People feel that somebody should not benefit, but on the other hand the scheme is meant to operate as a no-fault scheme, so there is that inherent tension in what the government is proposing here. We obviously do not intend to oppose it of course, and as I say, we understand why the government is doing this. These are steps that are reasonable.

What I do want to say, though, is that the road safety achievements of this government have been lacking. The government abolished the Road Safety Committee. The road safety achievements have not been good in terms of the overall rate. The changes that the government makes here are modest and worthy, and in that sense they are not opposed, but we think there are deeper problems that are not being tackled.

We think the road surface in many places is a significant matter, and the government’s announcements about and predilection for reducing the speeds on roads where the surface has decayed or deteriorated are I think a significant problem. We have seen across the state a growing concern, particularly in country Victoria, but actually Mr Hayes and I also know of roads in our area that are not up to scratch. One of the things the government can do and should do is keep the quality of road surfaces high and make those decisions to prioritise the quality of our roads. Our roads have deteriorated.

As my colleague Steph Ryan said recently, launching her new campaign to expose Victoria’s worst roads—she is the Shadow Minister for Public Transport and Roads:

… the three-month campaign to find Victoria’s worst roads will seek safety reports straight from drivers.

Drivers will be:

… encouraged to submit road condition reports as they travel the state via an online portal …

‘Decades of neglect has left Victoria’s roads rough and potholed, risking the lives of motorcyclists, car drivers and truckies …

Steph makes the point very correctly that:

‘There have been 76 lives lost on Victorian roads already this year, but Labor is spending less on maintaining and repairing the state’s roads …

Meanwhile the Andrews Labor government has found a predilection for cost blowouts and surging costs in many of its major projects—$28 billion of project cost overruns, which could have been used to do much of the roadwork that is necessary around the state. That waste, that mismanagement, that incompetence—savings could have been delivered that could have funded these things. She makes the correct point that the government carved nearly $200 million from road asset maintenance in last year’s state budget alone—a 25 per cent cut down to $616 million.

I want to put on the record our ongoing concern at the state government’s decision to axe the country roads and bridges program. It disbanded the Road Safety Committee. Country roads and bridges was a great program. It was loved by country Victorians and loved by councils. It provided councils with that certainty of funding—there was $1 million a year in the period from 2010 to 2014—so they could ahead of time prioritise their own council roads to ensure that the standard was brought up in a scheduled and thoughtful way. At the moment for those council roads there is very little government support, and the bridge issue is also important. But in this context of road safety cutting the roads funding has not been a smart move, and we say that this is a strategic mistake of the government.

I want to put on record some of the huge cost blowouts. The North East Link, initially promised at $5 billion, is now listed in the 2022–23 state budget at $15.4 billion. I mean, this is some sort of record. I do not know what the record is, but the Guinness Book of Records is going to be able to put an entry in there for a road project that has surged beyond its initial cost, and I think this project is a worthy entrant into that terrible contest. How incompetent of this government.

The West Gate Tunnel Project—we all remember in 2014 they promised that little slip-road for $500 million. Then Transurban came knocking at the door seeking a market-led proposal, and the revised cost—a different project; entirely different from what had been promised—was $5.5 billion. The 2022–23 state budget was forced to fess up to the cost blowout. It is now $10.2 billion. That is a blowout of $4.7 billion and still ticking. I understand that that project has hardly commenced. The actual tunnelling component has hardly commenced. We are talking about a $4.7 billion blowout.

The Metro Tunnel was promised at $9 billion, and that is now $3.36 billion over budget. They spent $1.3 billion cancelling a road, in the east–west link, and $1.3 billion could have been spent on actually building a road rather than cancelling it.

I think it is important to look at examples like the Mordialloc bypass, a good road—it was Liberal policy in 2014 at $300 million. The state government commenced the project at $375 million. The project is completed, and we obviously welcomed that project, but it was more than $400 million—40 per cent over its budget. This is the nature of this government: they cannot control projects, they cannot constrain the costs and they cannot scope these projects properly at the start. You look around the state, and you say, ‘Just find me a project that has been brought in near to budget. Find me a project that they’ve actually kept under control’. Lest people think that this is not a concern, people should be very aware of what this actually means. This is money that could have been spent on other worthwhile projects.

Even the suburban roads upgrade started off in the 2021–22 budget at $2.208 billion and ended up in this year’s budget at $2.513 billion, a $305 million blowout. These are huge, huge blowouts, and all of this money is money that has been wasted by not having proper cost control, not having proper scoping of these projects and not actually being able to prioritise the management of these projects in the proper way. The outcomes for Victoria are waste, opportunities squandered and the parlous state of our roads, particularly in country Victoria, making it very, very clear that the result for the state is not up to scratch. The government’s response where failing country roads are in evidence is to say, ‘We’re going to lower the speed’. They do not say, ‘We’re going to fix the roads and enable people to travel safely at a sensible speed’; they say, ‘We’re going to lower the speed because the quality of the roads has deteriorated’. That is what they say, and that is what they do.

The idea that you would knock all of these country roads down to 80 k’s, as some government ministers have proposed, is absurd. It is very damaging to country Victorians who need to get to work, who need to move their produce, to tourists who need to move around the state and to all of the activities in the economy. There is a cost to these poor country roads. There is an economic cost and a social cost—a social cost in two ways: people are blocked from moving around the state, seeing relatives, undertaking business activities, all of those things, but there is also obviously the social cost of accidents. And poor roads are linked to accidents.

The government is making some changes in this bill. We do not oppose those changes, but we say you have actually got to spend properly on these country roads. You have got to spend properly on a number of city roads. Mr Hayes and I know our electorate, and we know that there are places where there are potholes in the road on quite significant arterial roads. That actually damages vehicles, but it is also clearly unsafe. The state government should be focusing on keeping the roads up to scratch, keeping the maintenance schedules up to scratch and actually making sure that in country Victoria those country roads are kept to a higher standard. We have said the government should never have abolished the country roads and bridges program. It was a good partnership between councils and the state government, and the idea that you had a regular flow of money so you could schedule proper repairs and proper maintenance across the municipality is something that has been lost to this government. I cannot understand their logic; I cannot understand their thinking.

I want to come to our amendment 2. We see that since 1967 the Road Safety Committee made a huge contribution. It was wrong of this government to abolish it. It actually led the way for so many decades, and Victoria has lost its way on a lot of these road safety initiatives now. It is our view that only by reinstating the Road Safety Committee and providing broad parliamentary, bipartisan leadership on this issue can we get it back. We actually need those bipartisan positions coming through the committee, with the committee doing proper investigations, providing proper leadership and proper solutions to government and doing it in a way that is beyond politics, above politics, that is bipartisan and indeed across the whole of the Parliament. The idea that the government would just cut that committee out is again bizarre. It is bizarre given the very strong record of that committee. Victorian people who have been around a little while would remember that 1034—which was in 1970 from recollection, or thereabouts—was the peak of the terrible road toll in this state. That parliamentary Road Safety Committee led a lot of the initiatives—seatbelts and breathalysers; all of those important initiatives where Victoria led the world. Now we are way behind the pack. We are not leading now; we are behind the pack. And that is why this committee is quite important.

If I could circulate that amendment, that would be good. This will require a widening motion, an instruction-to-committee motion, but we believe it is appropriate in a bill that deals with the issue of road safety that we revisit a key point that the coalition has raised again and again. We need that leadership, we need the outcomes and I would ask the clerks if they would kindly circulate that amendment.

Opposition amendments circulated by Mr DAVIS pursuant to standing orders.

Mr DAVIS: We will obviously seek to move that in committee and would welcome support across the chamber. We think it is a matter that is beyond politics. It should be beyond politics.

We have a couple of areas of concern that we will raise in committee. The government has not made public the report related to the trial of AI technology and, I understand, unless there has been some development very recently, is yet to provide some of the requested information on the frequency of deaths attributed to individuals convicted of murder, manslaughter and culpable driving. Data has also been requested on the car-dooring matters. We will seek those pieces of information in the committee stage. Again, the essence of the bill is relatively simple across those areas. I have outlined our view, and I have indicated that we will seek to move those amendments in committee if that is the chamber’s will.

Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (10:56): It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak to and support the Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. Road safety and the injuries and deaths coming from road accidents are some of the many concerns, and it has been high on the government’s priority list to reduce them and to prevent accidents. In Australia recently we have improved on road safety and prevention, so we have been able to reduce fatalities on our roads. Still there are around 1000 or more deaths on the roads in Australia, and in Victoria the number has been hovering around 200, which is still too high. Now the government is working to halve the deaths on our roads by 2030 and is aiming to have zero deaths by 2050, with the Victorian Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030.

In Victoria, thankfully, we have the Transport Accident Commission, an entity to provide care, support and compensation for those who unfortunately are injured in road accidents. I know it well because I served on the board of the TAC for a few years. It is headquartered in Geelong. I want to take this opportunity to thank the board, the present one, and also to applaud all the staff at the TAC for their very important and hardworking efforts to provide care and compensation for those who are injured on the roads. But more than that, the TAC also works very hard in presenting and bringing road safety messages to road users, in providing education as well as in caring for, supporting and compensating those who are injured. During my time there and going on until now, the TAC have upgraded a lot of the technology, equipment and facilities and also had a lot of data collected for big data studies, including some longitudinal studies, to find out about the support, the conditions and the effectiveness of the education and safety messages they have been advocating and promoting in the community.

I also had the privilege to visit some of the facilities that the TAC provides—for example, a dedicated housing facility for some of the road-injured people. Those people need a lot of care and also need a very specialised and dedicated facility in order to carry on a life that is as close to normal as possible.

But the TAC can only do what the act allows, so these amendments amend the Transport Accident Act 1986 to address some of the anomalies and acquit these in the act. Namely, the improvements include raising the legislated age of a dependent child from under 16 to under 18 years old for the purposes of receiving certain benefits. Because people under 18 are still dependent, it raises the age so they can be cared for in case one of their parents gets injured. The amendments also include the improvements of ensuring that a dependent child whose parents were killed in the same accident is not financially disadvantaged compared with a child whose parents were killed in separate accidents. This is a very sad situation—if both parents are killed in a road accident—but at the moment there is still an anomaly: if the parents were killed in separate accidents, then the dependant would receive more compensation and support than those who unfortunately have both parents killed in the same accident. So the amendments will address that.

Another improvement is to ensure that people receiving loss-of-earnings entitlements who have a subsequent transport accident will receive the same entitlements as they received for their first transport accident claim. Someone who was working and then somehow unfortunately got involved in a road accident would then get compensation and support. During that time the support and the compensation would be calculated depending on their work prior to the accident. If that person, during the compensation time, during their recuperation and rehab time, somehow got involved in another accident, then at the moment the second compensation following the second accident would be calculated based on the present situation—namely, the lower income. That is not a fair outcome. So this bill will make sure that, if unfortunately a person got involved in a second accident while still receiving compensation for another prior accident, they would receive the same entitlements as they had for the first transport accident claim.

The improvements also extend income benefits for people within three years of reaching retirement age in order to align with the entitlements of younger claimants. Also improvements are introduced to enable TAC to lay criminal charges in relation to fraudulent claims. Unfortunately there are some claims that are fraudulent, and the TAC has been using detective work as well as big data collection, machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect and correct those fraudulent claims and bring those making them to justice. The improvements in this amendment bill also ensure that a cyclist who collides with an open or opening door, which is also known as a dooring accident, is treated the same regardless of whether the person opening the door was an owner, a driver or a passenger of that vehicle, because sometimes the door could be opened by people who are not in the vehicle at that instant.

Also, improvements are being introduced to ensure that benefits, separate from medical-related benefits, will not be paid to people when they are convicted of murder, manslaughter or child homicide because of their use of a motor vehicle in a crash. So those are some of the improvements being introduced by this bill to rectify some anomalies and inequities for the TAC.

This bill also introduces some automated enforcement technologies, similar to the ones we already have on the roads—namely, speed cameras and red-light cameras for people who do not observe the speed limit or who run a red light. This bill also introduces enforcement technology for people using mobile phones and portable devices when they are driving or stationary but the car is not parked. There are some studies that have found that if people are using portable devices or mobile phones then the risk of having a crash is between twice and 10 times the risk for other drivers. The Monash University Accident Research Centre has estimated that an automated mobile phone enforcement camera program could prevent 95 deaths from crashes per year. This is a very big improvement in order to reduce trauma, deaths and injured people on our roads.

Automated enforcement technology is also being introduced for people not wearing seatbelts. It is very disappointing to have people, many years after seatbelt legislation was introduced decades ago, now still in a vehicle, as a driver or as a passenger in a vehicle, not wearing a seatbelt, and this has resulted in very serious injuries and even deaths in the case of collisions and accidents. So enforcement technology will be introduced to catch those who do not follow the rules for seatbelts or who use mobile phones or portable devices while the car is in motion or even stationary but not parked properly.

I have a few more minutes, so I just want to very quickly go to some of the other elements of the bill. I am sure that some of my colleagues will speak to them later on. Another important element of this bill is to introduce the ability for senior police to take drivers off the road when the driving offences are serious, including culpable driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death or serious injury or manslaughter arising from the use of a motor vehicle and also hit-and-run offences when they result in a person being killed or seriously injured.

So I commend the government for continuing to take action to improve safety on our roads and to provide care and compensation for people who are injured in transport accidents. This bill will help us achieve the targets we have set in the Victorian Road Safety Strategy, and I am more than confident that it will lead to improved safety outcomes and it will make the accident compensation scheme have fairer and more equitable outcomes.

Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (11:10): I want to say at the outset there is much to be commended about this bill. However, I do share many of the concerns that Mr Davis alluded to earlier about the condition of our roads, which are not in good shape. I think that there is a lot of work that needs to be done on local roads and local infrastructure in general. I have been talking to this and asking questions about it over the last couple of days. Our local infrastructure is running down. We are not spending enough money on it. We have spent a lot of money and had blowouts on big projects. In the budget we talk about conditions returning to pre-COVID conditions, and they sing out with some triumph that we are going to return to the eye-watering rates of population growth that we had pre COVID. We are up at Third World levels for Melbourne in population growth, and also our population goals are quite incredible considering the environmental crisis we are faced with. But while we have Third World rates of growth, we are starting to see our infrastructure lag behind very seriously, heading towards Third World standards. The roads, the local roads in my area but also arterial roads, are not getting the care and attention they used to get.

As I said, there is much about this bill that I support. However, I am concerned about some of the measures in this bill. I will talk particularly about the installation of cameras that can look into people’s cars to detect mobile phone use and lack of compliance with seatbelt laws. All of that is very important. Driving using a mobile phone, we all know, is really dangerous. I am sure we agree on that. And it is the same with people driving without seatbelts—it is almost unbelievable in this day and age. However, what the government is proposing to do in the bill is to utilise cameras that can spy into people’s cars from a long distance away. To me this seems to set a new precedent on loss of privacy and community expectations of that privacy in this state. It seems to me that the authority’s attitude to this ever more invasive technology when it comes to privacy is: ‘If the technology exists, we’ll use it’. Dr Kieu alluded to this: that now with facial recognition and what we can do with cameras we can go back, look through the evidence and see if fraudulent insurance claims have been made. This is all through the ability of computers and technology that is now becoming more and more prevalent.

Here there is no discussion, no framework for privacy. There seems to be no limit on what further invasions of the right to privacy will be justified in the name of road safety. Surely as I speak we have devices already that could be fitted to a car and relay information to a central control centre. We could record people’s speeds and see if they are over the limit. You know, a device could compare that to the local speed limits. I am sure a lot of people would consider measures like that a step too far, but this increase in monitoring of individuals is done in other authoritarian countries. It can be argued probably here that such a loss of privacy, if it is done, could be done for a worthy policy goal, but my question is: where is all this going? The government now will be spying on people in their cars under this bill in the name of reducing the road toll, but many cynics might see this as primarily a revenue-grabbing measure.

People are as cynical about the use of speed cameras that might ping you now for being a few kilometres over the limit. There is no warning that these speed cameras are there, but they are there, and they are used in evidence against you. We are told that facial recognition enabled by cameras in the street supposedly reduces crime, but in other countries where these technologies are already in use jaywalking can be detected and prosecuted in retrospect. On incorrect assignment of rubbish to the relevant bins, I saw in a program people being recorded by street cameras putting the wrong rubbish in their rubbish bins and being prosecuted on the basis of this monitoring.

While we are seeing in this bill the government proposing to spy on what people are doing in their cars to save lives, not for revenue, the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association has contacted me concerned that the government does not seem to have the same zeal when it comes to saving lives in regard to alcohol and drug addiction. VAADA, the drug and alcohol association, highlighted in the recent budget that despite Victoria already having some of the worst drug and alcohol rehab availability in the nation, another infrastructure run-down compared to population growth, money for drug and alcohol counsellors was actually reduced in last week’s budget—nearly $40 million taken away from people who need this treatment. This saving might also put road users at risk. I do not know any expert that would recommend a cut to drug and alcohol rehab at the same time as we see serious addiction problems increasing. But we are told by the government that in order to save lives we have to support this large intrusion into people’s privacy in this bill.

The lack of discussion about this and where this surveillance state is headed is a concern. All of us have seen the capacity of this technology to increase surveillance of citizens in dictatorships around the world. We need more guidance and discussion, I believe, about the intended trade-offs between surveillance technology and individual rights and liberty. To listen to the government on what they put forward in the bill, there is no trade-off at all. All we hear is that there are going to be benefits, but in the community many people will register that, while there are safety benefits, the use of technology to invade people’s privacy has made another big leap forward with, it seems, no discussion whatsoever. I will finish there.

Ms BURNETT-WAKE (Eastern Victoria) (11:18): I rise to speak on the Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. The Liberals and Nationals will not be opposing this bill. However, I will be supporting our amendments, which seek to reintroduce the Road Safety Committee, and I will outline my reasons throughout my contribution today. The bill before us seeks to create new offences for distracted drivers and those who fail to wear seatbelts on Victorian roads. It gives evidentiary status to road cameras that detect mobile phone use and creates a new list of offences that may trigger on-the-spot licence suspensions. If while in control of a motor vehicle a driver commits murder, attempted murder or manslaughter by harming some other person, they will be subject to immediate licence suspension too. Licence suspensions will also happen on the spot for intentionally exposing an emergency, custodial or youth worker to risk. Dangerous or negligent driving while being pursued by police will also see licences suspended on the spot. I do not think anyone would argue that someone doing any of these things should not be taken off our roads. The bill also makes various changes to payments under the TAC scheme, which I will also return to throughout my contribution today.

The government recently ran a three-month trial of mobile phone detection cameras. They have now introduced this bill, which will allow pictures taken by these cameras to be used to issue fines. These cameras will detect people who are using a mobile phone while driving. The picture will then go to a trained individual for verification before a fine is sent out, as a protection against technical error. The government trial found that one in 42 drivers were on their phones or had their phones in their laps while driving. I think all of us in this chamber have probably witnessed other road users using their phones while behind the wheel. I certainly have driven alongside people who have had both hands glued to their phone as they attempted to drive with their knees. It feels like it is becoming more common.

It is not just P-platers, it is people from all generations who think it is safe to multitask while driving on our roads. The lucky ones get fined; the unlucky ones lose a life—or worse, take the life of an innocent party due to their distracted driving. The education and TAC campaigns clearly are not getting through, so if fines are what it takes to get people off their phones I think it is worth trying. As it stands, the penalty for using a mobile phone is 4 demerit points and a $540 fine. If the government had fined every Victorian caught using a mobile phone during its three-month trial, it would have made just short of $9 million in revenue. The use of these cameras is going to be a big revenue earner for the government, and I hope that the money is used to fix other road safety hazards, such as our regional Victorian roads.

This bill also gives evidentiary status to cameras that detect those who are not wearing seatbelts, and those Victorians will also receive fines in the mail. The introduction of seatbelts came about because of a Victorian Parliament Joint Select Committee on Road Safety, which was established in 1967 to consider ways to reduce road accidents. By 1970 the road toll in Australia had reached critical levels, with 3798 motorists losing their lives that year. It was a Victorian Liberal government that became the first in the Western world to introduce legislation requiring that seatbelts be worn.

Road safety is one of those areas that we all want to get right. We all want our roads to be safe. That is why the Road Safety Committee had so much success. It allowed us to work together, and the work of the committee really shaped the road safety rules we have today. The committee delivered reports on licensing, demerit points, roadworthiness of vehicles, speed limits and rural road safety. It leads me to seriously question why the Andrews Labor government abolished the committee upon coming to government in 2014. One of the first things they did was to disband that committee, which did some incredible work in the road safety space. That committee had been behind some of our most significant road safety reforms, and it is a real shame that this government decided to abolish it. As mentioned, I am supporting the Liberals’ amendment to bring back that committee. It is evident how successful that committee was and how much difference we can make when we work together on these issues. The committee should still exist today, and I think it is important that we bring it back so that we can continue to create safe roads. It was this committee that pushed for the introduction of seatbelts around 1970.

The government’s recent camera trial also looked at motorists who failed to wear a seatbelt. It found that one in 667 drivers were not wearing one. The fact that people still are not wearing seatbelts in 2022 is incredible. In 2021 more than 30 people died while not wearing a seatbelt. These deaths were all preventable, and that is the very sad thing about road-related deaths: the vast majority of them are preventable. The introduction of fines for not wearing seatbelts and using mobile phones is not contentious. It is evident that our road toll is severely heightened due to drivers being on their phones or unrestrained. Road safety campaigns and tearjerking TAC ads just are not getting through, and I think it will be interesting to see how these figures change once the cameras are introduced to detect people on their phones. I think it would also be very interesting to see how we could strengthen our road safety if that committee were to be brought back.

The bill is focused on driver behaviour, which of course is one of many important factors that contribute to road safety. However, there are a number of other factors relevant to road safety that have not been addressed in this bill, such as the condition of our roads past the tram tracks, outside of Melbourne. I do not think that our focus on road safety should just be about the loss of demerit points and fines. It should also be about making our roads safer for all road users. I can think of many roads in Eastern Victoria Region that are unsafe and riddled with deep potholes that are dangerous and cause significant damage to my constituents’ vehicles. I have been the victim of potholes on two occasions. On one occasion my rim was completely smashed, and I had both children in my car, and on the second occasion another rim was smashed and my axle broke. So these potholes are really, really bad.

I have quite a large electorate, and no matter where I travel I notice road-surfacing issues. The roads are deteriorating, speed limits are all over the place and white lines are so faded in some spots that they are nearly not there at all. A prime example is the Princes Highway near Gumbuya World. They have been calling for an overpass at Tynong North near Gumbuya World for years after multiple horrific accidents and near misses. Between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2020 there was one fatal and two serious crashes and two others involving injuries. Just last year a male driver died, while a female and a child were taken to hospital with critical injuries. It is an extremely busy road that constantly has trucks going by, entering and exiting the sand quarry. There are 7831 people who have signed a petition for an overpass, traffic lights or a roundabout to be installed, but all the government has done is lower the speed limit. That seems to be this government’s way of fixing our roads. They lower the speed limit from 100 kilometres to 80 kilometres rather than investing in our roads.

In last week’s state budget the Andrews Labor government slashed road asset maintenance funding for a second year in a row. They have reduced it by another $24 million after already taking $191 million in the previous 2021–22 budget. These cuts are definitely not because the roads have been fixed.

The last part of the bill that I wish to speak on is the changes to TAC benefits. This bill amends the Transport Accident Act 1986 to ensure drivers convicted of manslaughter, murder or culpable driving will not be able to receive death benefits if they survive the accident and are charged. This means people who kill their partners through the use of a motor vehicle and are charged will not be eligible to receive financial compensation. I think there are many people who upon hearing that would agree with it instantly. There are, however, numerous factors to consider here. Culpable driving includes negligently driving under section 318 of the Crimes Act 1958. Negligent driving is quite broad. This means there may be situations where the individuals charged with culpable driving do not receive a death benefit despite losing a partner. I think there is some further information needed about how this will work because, as we all know, being charged does not always mean a guilty finding will be upheld. I think these are some questions that need to be fleshed out in the committee stage.

Overall the main purpose of this bill is to give evidentiary status to those mobile phone and seatbelt cameras, something that has been a long time coming. I look forward to seeing how much of a difference these cameras make to road safety and encourage the government to act immediately to fix our regional roads. Properly maintained roads are safer roads. That is why the Liberals and Nationals have launched a website seeking road condition reports from locals, councils, farmers and community groups to identify the roads most in need of maintenance. I would encourage Victorians to make use of that platform. I will end my contribution there.

Mr ERDOGAN (Southern Metropolitan) (11:28): It gives me great pleasure to rise and make a contribution to the debate on the Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. This bill introduces a number of important measures to improve road safety in our state. It provides the legislative provisions needed to support the implementation of automated enforcement of driver-distraction and seatbelt-wearing offences. I recall that during our Economy and Infrastructure Committee inquiry into the road toll in 2020 it was a topic that came up with a number of expert witnesses, who said that driver distraction is one of the main causes of road accidents and hence trauma. It also addresses gaps in the list of serious road offences that should trigger immediate licence suspension or disqualification when charges for such offences are laid by police. I support these initiatives, and I am confident that they will make a tangible contribution to reducing road trauma, moving us closer to our target of reducing the number of lives lost each year on Victorian roads by 50 per cent by 2030. The bill also improves the transport accident compensation scheme in the Transport Accident Act 1986, with the aim of improving fairness and equality. I will focus most of my contribution on these changes, as my colleague Dr Kieu has already reflected and provided this chamber with a general overview of the bill before the house.

Victoria is right to be proud of its transport accident compensation scheme, which provides critical care and support to victims of road trauma. For those of you that might not be familiar, the TAC system provides medical and like expenses for those that are injured on our roads or in relation to a road accident. In provides no-fault benefits in terms of access to a no-fault compensation scheme, a lump sum, and it also provides a gateway to common-law benefits for larger amounts where there is a negligent party involved in the accident. It is a comprehensive scheme, and I believe by far and away the best scheme in Australia. In the last financial year more than 53 000 Victorians received a total of $1.57 billion in support and benefits after an accident. In addition, $192 million from the compensation fund was invested in measures to prevent and reduce road accidents.

The TAC does a great job in administering the scheme and tries to get the best possible outcome for its clients; however, when the TAC makes decisions about the treatment and services it can pay for, it must follow the Transport Accident Act 1986. In recent years the TAC, its clients, their representatives and other stakeholders have identified a number of anomalies and inequities that need to be addressed in order to achieve the fairest possible outcomes for victims of road trauma and their families. I would like to speak about some of these and these important reforms in this area.

As a starting point, the bill will increase the age of a dependent child from 16 to 18 years old. This brings the definition into line with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. In practice it will ensure that benefits will continue to be paid for the care of children until they are adults.

The definition of a member of the immediate family has also been expanded to include a grandchild. This is due to the fact that it is both logical and fairer to have all relationships in the immediate family definition paired so that benefits flow in either direction in the event of an injury. In the same way as the scheme works for spouses, siblings, parents and children, it will now also be available reciprocally for both grandchild and grandparent if the grandparent or grandchild respectively is injured. In our society there are plenty of examples of grandparents acting as the primary carer for grandchildren and vice versa when children become adults and grandparents reach a stage in their life where they need active support. The scheme needs to properly account for those relationships and the effect road accidents can have on the provision of care and support in those circumstances.

In the interests of fairness the bill provides for payments to dependent children to double where both parents are killed in the same road accident. This is because it is inconsistent that children get two benefits if their parents are killed in separate accidents but one payment if they were killed in the same accident. This is a change that will make an enormous difference to children that become orphans due to the consequences of road accidents. Obviously in these tragic circumstances we are ensuring that fairness is met.

The bill also addresses an anomaly surrounding the circumstances where a person convicted of a serious driving offence is not entitled to compensation—so it will fix that anomaly. The Transport Accident Act currently precludes a driver who is injured in a transport accident and convicted for culpable driving causing death or dangerous driving causing death from receiving benefits under the act. However, in some circumstances someone who has killed a person using a motor vehicle will not be charged with culpable or dangerous driving causing death but instead is charged with murder, manslaughter or child homicide. The bill recognises that it is appropriate to preclude someone from receiving benefits in these circumstances as well. The scheme must not provide a means for persons who have committed such crimes to benefit.

There are also a number of critical reforms associated with calculating loss-of-earnings benefits for people involved in subsequent accidents. Loss-of-earnings payments are generally paid at 80 to 85 per cent of the injured person’s pre-accident weekly earnings. In most circumstances pre-accident weekly earnings are determined based on the weekly average of the past 12 months before the accident date. So picture a person who is receiving loss-of-earnings payments already and is involved in a subsequent accident. Their pre-accident weekly earnings are currently recalculated on the average of the usually reduced rate. That means they have already been reduced to 80 or 85 per cent and then, because there is a subsequent accident, there will be a calculation of 80 or 85 per cent of that reduced amount, which could result, theoretically at least, to a client’s loss-of-earnings benefit being as low as 64 per cent of their usual wage if they have two accidents within an 18-month time frame. The bill ensures that a TAC client involved in another accident is not financially disadvantaged because they were already receiving TAC loss-of-earnings payments.

In a similar vein the bill also removes discrimination for older workers by increasing loss-of-earnings and loss-of-earnings capacity entitlements from 12 to 36 months and providing a total income benefit of up to three years, so making it fairer for people so pensioners and older workers have access to the same income entitlements as other earners. Again, this is about what is fair for people who have already lost so much through their road trauma.

The Transport Accident Act currently indemnifies owners who have paid the transport accident charge against a common-law damages claim for the tort of negligence for personal injury caused by that vehicle. This currently includes drivers who have car-doored a cyclist. However, passengers or other parties who door a cyclist are not covered by the Transport Accident Act 1986 despite an incident of this type being defined as a transport accident under the act. The effect of this is that cyclists can claim no-fault benefits for a dooring accident but can only claim common-law damages if it was an indemnified owner or driver who doored them or they were somehow proven to otherwise be at fault. If a passenger was at fault for the dooring accident, the cyclist cannot recover common-law damages from the TAC as the indemnity does not extend cover to a passenger. The bill adds that a person who opens or was opening a door that caused the collision with a cyclist is indemnified by the TAC regardless of whether the person opening the door is the driver or a passenger.

In addition to addressing these anomalies that cause inequity and unfairness, the bill also makes a number of administrative changes to the Transport Accident Act 1986. The bill amends information privacy and disclosure provisions so the TAC can release information in specified circumstances—for example, to Victoria Police or authorities like the Coroners Court to pursue guardian and administration orders. The bill also gives the TAC broader powers to file charges under the Crimes Act 1958 in connection with crimes associated with claims. This is relevant where any of the TAC’s clients or providers commit criminal offences such as fraud against the commission. The amendments enable the TAC to deliver the body of evidence for the prosecution and file charges and then hand over the proceeding to the Office of Public Prosecutions. This will ensure that roles and responsibilities reflect where the expertise lies. This will also save time and resources for the TAC.

In summary, the bill provides for important reforms to be made to the Transport Accident Act 1986 which improve the transport accident scheme by addressing anomalies and inequities. In regard to bringing this bill to the house, I also wanted to thank Minister Carroll and his team for bringing these important reforms that are included as part of the bill before us.

I did want to reflect about the opposition’s comments about creating a website about roads that need repair. I could not help myself, because if only they focused on Victorian roads instead of focusing on roads in other jurisdictions and international roads. The Victorian taxpayer is already investing in critical infrastructure which improves road safety as it is. I doubt that as a state we have the resources or the means—or that it is our remit—to fix roads across the other side of the world, 20 000 or 30 000 kilometres away. It would be cognisant for the state opposition to reflect upon the misinformation they are sending out there when they are putting up pictures of roads from war-torn countries and trying to show Victorians that somehow our government has left our roads in that state. That is not the case, and I think it is important to clarify that.

I am not sure if they apologised for that misinformation, but I would ask the Leader of the Opposition in this house to at least apologise to Victorians for that misinformation, because like I said, the World Wide Web obviously has a lot of misinformation. It is a big issue. I recall the work of another committee I was on in which we saw that disinformation can also lead to people being misinformed when they are going to cast their vote, so it is a threat to our democracy. I hope that website they have set up reflects the real state of our roads, reflects the real investment we are making on important infrastructure and does not just try to knock off photos from war-torn countries as somehow being connected to the state of our country roads and our roads in Victoria. I was definitely shocked and surprised that the state opposition would be pointing to that website as an example of work they are doing in this space.

I will also be voting against the amendments put by the state opposition. I do note that they have made a number of calls for committees in this place. I have lost count—I will not name them all—but there are a number of new committees they want to set up. Call me a sceptic here, but it seems they are more interested in trying to frustrate and prevent the much-needed work being done in our state by setting up these committees—to frustrate the process and stop the delivery of essential services that are needed by setting up endless committees. Like I said, I have lost count—I will not name them all—but Mr Davis has form in suggesting committees that should be formed. It seems to me that whenever they are unhappy with something they want to just set up a committee and hope that progress is prevented in our state.

So I cannot vote for the amendments; I am sorry about that. I cannot get myself to vote for them because I feel that they are just going to prevent the implementation of these much-needed reforms—reforms which will assist in stopping driver distraction, reforms that will mean that people that commit offences are appropriately disqualified from the TAC process, reforms that will mean we have a fairer TAC system that recognises the grandparent-grandchild relationship appropriately. It means older workers will have access to longer weekly payments—instead of a 12-month limit they will have a 36-month limit. So there are a number of reforms that improve our system, embrace technology and are an overall improvement to our road safety network.

Dr Kieu reflected on the work of the TAC as well. I was not aware that he was involved in the TAC in his previous career. I think the TAC do a fantastic job. They pay for all reasonable and like medical expenses for the journey of your life following a road trauma accident. Anything that is reasonable is covered under this scheme. Like I said, it is a leading scheme in our nation and should serve as an example to other jurisdictions, if I may reflect. So the TAC do a great job. The TAC commissioner has reflected on these reforms and has said:

These improvements … embody the TAC’s single-minded purpose of caring for everyone who uses Victoria’s roads—

whether that be—

… helping injured people get their lives back on track or preventing road trauma …

I could not have put it better myself. In that light I commend the bill to the house.

Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (11:41): I rise to speak on the Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. Amongst the many areas that this bill addresses there is one area of particular interest for me: this bill will trigger immediate licence suspension for hit-and-run and other serious charges. I am very pleased to see this legislation before Parliament, having moved a similar amendment last year during debate on the Transport Legislation Miscellaneous Amendments Bill 2021.

I pay special tribute today to Jeynelle Dean-Hayes, who has played a significant role in the drafting and development of this legislation. In 2017 Jeynelle’s son Tyler Dean was killed in a hit-and-run incident, and this devastating event was the catalyst for a campaign to change the law so that someone charged with a hit-and-run event will immediately have their licence suspended. Monique Patterson’s book Tears for Tyler details the night that Jeynelle and her husband Josh were driving to an event and the man responsible for the death of their boy drove up next to them and smiled. Jeynelle was gobsmacked that someone would not have their licence automatically suspended after a serious incident that resulted in her son losing his life. Campaigning for this law change, Jeynelle said:

It makes you feel so powerless that you’ve lost so much and it is just another day for (the accused) …

The government first brought this important change to the law to Parliament as part of the Road Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019. This was a genuine attempt to deliver on the advocacy of both Jeynelle Dean-Hayes and the victim-survivor of another accident, Chloe Dickman. After discovering some flaws in that legislation, I have worked with Minister Neville and Minister Carroll on these issues, which progressed to my bringing amendments to a road safety bill last year and the final resolution we have in this bill being debated today. I would also like to give a special mention to Simon Monk for his patience, consultation and dedication. His conversations with me were to ensure this legislation was amended and to ensure the appropriate outcome for hit-and-run crimes. This kind of collaboration shows what we can achieve together to make improvements to our laws, and I thank both Minister Neville and Minister Carroll and their staff for listening, considering and ultimately acting to bring changes to these laws that effect its original intention. It certainly took some time, perhaps longer than we hoped, but the most important thing is that we got there, which I know Jeynelle Dean-Hayes and Chloe Dickman will appreciate, as will their families and as will future victims—and we hope that those numbers will certainly be very few.

Moving on to other aspects of the bill, changes to TAC compensation provisions include the sensible increase of the age of a dependent child from 16 to 18, ensuring children who lose two parents in a single accident receive a benefit for each and expanding definitions so that grandchildren are included in the definition of ‘immediate family member’. The bill will also prevent someone convicted of murder, manslaughter or culpable driving causing death from making a TAC claim if their partner or child is injured or killed in the process. I was very pleased to know from my inquiries to the government on this particular aspect of the bill that there have been no such claims made in the past, as this would certainly be adding salt to the wounds of families who have lost a family member to an act of violence where a motor vehicle was used as a weapon.

One of the keynotes of this bill is the implementation of road safety camera technology to detect drivers who are using portable devices while driving or who are not wearing a seatbelt. It astounds me to this day that we are still seeing so many accidents where the drivers or passengers were not wearing seatbelts. It follows a successful trial and could prevent 95 casualty crashes each year. I think it is around 50 years since it became compulsory to wear a seatbelt, and it is surprising, as I said, and disappointing that the trial detected 667 drivers not wearing a seatbelt. If the rate of detection during the trial is any indicator, around one in 42 people are using a portable device while driving. That is a lot of people who are driving while distracted. I hope that this technology and enforcement will certainly deliver a lot of revenue and will have the desired impact of reducing our road toll and other serious injuries.

In closing I would like to make a quick couple of points about road safety more generally. In our submission to the inquiry into the increase in Victoria’s road toll Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party made five main recommendations, and some of those have been or are being delivered. This includes expanding the rate of drug testing of drivers, and I have had productive discussions with the Minister for Police about this. I hope that this important safety measure will soon be available for all police to help combat drug driving, which has now surpassed alcohol as a risk factor on our roads. We also recommended continued investment in improving our regional roads. I have worked closely with road ministers and the Department of Transport on a number of local road issues, which achieved improvements to the Black Spur road and the long-awaited safety provisions at the Hume Freeway intersection at Avenel.

We need to resolve the challenge faced by regional councils in funding road maintenance. For example, Buloke shire has 5300 kilometres of roads, which if put end to end would extend from Victoria to Singapore. That is more than 800 metres of road to maintain for every shire resident. These roads are not only important to residents for their everyday use but important to regional tourism, to our farmers, to our freight industry and to the safety of our emergency services. It is only fair that our roads are maintained at an acceptable safety standard whether they are in country areas or major metropolitan zones. While these matters are outside of the scope of this bill, they should be a priority for government and are something I will continue to advocate for. On that note I will end my contribution, and I commend this bill to the house.

Mr TARLAMIS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (11:49): I am also pleased to make a contribution to the debate on the Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. While it is not a large bill, it is an important one, as too many people are still dying and being seriously injured on our roads. This bill introduces a number of important measures to improve road safety. It provides the legislative provision needed to support the implementation of automated enforcement of driver distraction and seatbelt-wearing offences, it addresses gaps in the list of serious road offences that should trigger immediate licence suspension or disqualification when charges for such offences are laid by police and it improves the transport accident compensation scheme in the Transport Accident Act 1986 with the aim of improving fairness and equality.

All of these initiatives will make tangible contributions to reducing road trauma and moving as close to our target of reducing the number of lives lost each year on Victorian roads by 50 per cent by 2030. Under the Victorian Road Safety Action Plan 2021–2023 the government has committed to taking action that focuses on people at high risk of being injured and people who engage in high-risk behaviours. To be able to achieve our aim of a 50 per cent reduction in the road toll by the year 2030 we need to take all steps to reduce driver distraction and take stronger action to catch dangerous drivers and get them off our roads.

We all know that it can take time for a case to reach the court. But we need to find ways to detect unsafe drivers’ behaviour more effectively, and we need to act quickly to prevent unsafe drivers from putting our community at further risk. I am proud to say that this bill takes significant steps forward in this regard. In 2020 this government brought in laws enabling police to immediately ban people from driving if they had been charged with any of the following offences arising from the use of a motor vehicle and if they posed an unacceptable risk to road safety until charges were determined: murder or attempted murder using a vehicle as a weapon, causing serious injury intentionally or recklessly in circumstances of gross violence using a vehicle, causing serious injury intentionally or recklessly using a vehicle and causing injury intentionally or recklessly using a vehicle.

The bill follows through on the government’s in-principle support of a proposal by Ms Maxwell, a member for Northern Victoria, in the Legislative Council last year during a debate on another transport bill. Ms Maxwell proposed that the list of offences created in 2020 should be expanded to include culpable driving, dangerous driving causing death or serious injury, failing to stop and failing to render assistance. Ms Maxwell’s proposed house amendment did not succeed at the time, because it was drafted in a way that would have had unintended consequences. But this bill delivers on the concerns that she raised and other members of the community have raised. As she outlined in her contribution, extensive work has been conducted by her, the minister’s office and a number of others to ensure that the changes in this bill address all of those concerns and will have the intended outcomes, which will basically address the matters in an appropriate and thorough way, will give the desired outcome that everyone will be happy with and hopefully will lead to much better outcomes in the future. Thank you for your work with the minister’s office and the minister to land where we have and to get us to the point where we are today with this bill.

Under this bill the following offences arising out of the use of a motor vehicle will be added to the regime: culpable driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death or serious injury, failing to stop and render assistance after an accident where another person has died or been seriously injured, manslaughter, negligently causing serious injury, dangerous or negligent driving while pursued by police and intentionally or recklessly exposing an emergency worker, a custodial officer or a youth justice custodial worker to risk by driving. These are all serious driving offences that pose a risk to the community and attract mandatory court-imposed driving bans upon determination of guilt.

It is important to balance the competing interests in these situations. We need to remember that our democracy recognises a person’s right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. We cannot allow police to be judge and jury and let them remove the driving privileges of anyone they fancy, but on the other hand I think every one of us has been impacted or at least knows someone who has been impacted by the actions of an unsafe and dangerous driver on our roads. I think this bill strikes the right balance in this regard. It only extends the power to senior police officers—that is, officers of or above the rank of sergeant. In order to impose a driving ban for a hit-and-run the senior police officer must be satisfied that another person has died or suffered serious injury and that the driver poses an unacceptable risk to road safety until charges are determined by a court.

The other main road safety focus of this bill is on reducing driver distraction and increasing compliance with seatbelt wearing requirements. Driver distraction is estimated to be the contributing factor to 11 per cent of road fatalities, amounting to approximately 24 lives lost each year. Driver distraction is also estimated to be the cause of more than 400 serious injuries per year. Despite seatbelt wearing being mandated over 50 years ago, failure to wear seatbelts is still contributing to the lives lost on our roads. Of the 232 people who died on our roads last year, 31 were not wearing seatbelts. A pilot of the camera technology in 2020 detected high levels of illegal mobile phone use while driving. The media release on the outcomes of the trial was issued on 9 April 2021. It indicated that the trial was undertaken over a three-month period and assessed a total of 679 438 vehicles. One in every 42 drivers was found to be illegally using their mobile phone. However, much higher levels of mobile phone use were detected in three locations: Craigieburn Road East, Wollert, with a one-in-18 offence rate; Calder Park Drive in Hillside, with a one-in-21 offence rate; and Old Geelong Road in Laverton, with a one-in-28 offence rate. The pilot also found that many drivers and passengers were not wearing a seatbelt. Other dangerous behaviours, such as driving with no hands on the wheel or with pets on laps, were also observed.

A key focus of the Victorian Road Safety Action Plan 2021–2023 is supporting and enforcing driver safety behaviour, such as improved compliance with seatbelt wearing, and deterrence of behaviours that lead to driver distraction. To this end, in December 2020 the government committed $33.72 million over five years to roll out mobile phone and seatbelt offence detection cameras as a priority project under the action plan. The cameras will capture high-resolution images of passing vehicles in all traffic and weather conditions, day and night. Images that are likely to contain a mobile phone offence will then be verified by appropriately trained personnel before further enforcement action takes place. There will be an extensive public communications campaign leading up to turning on the cameras. There will also be a three-month introduction period, before the cameras start operating in early 2023, where offending drivers will receive warning letters instead of fines. A key part of changing unsafe driving behaviour is effective enforcement and the perceived likelihood of getting caught.

As I said earlier, this bill also proposes to improve the transport accident compensation scheme by addressing anomalies and inequities in the Transport Accident Act 1986. These improvements are quite extensive, and my colleagues have gone through them in some detail. I will touch on a few of them here, but I am conscious that we are about to go to question time, so I will not go through all of them. A number of them relate to changes that will improve the transport accident compensation scheme to address anomalies and inequities in the Transport Accident Act. But basically this bill will improve road safety and help us achieve the targets we have set in the Victorian Road Safety Strategy. It will improve support for people that are hurt on our roads. That is why the changes within it are good and should be supported, and that is why I commend the bill to the house and wish it a speedy passage.

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.